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Post spinal surgery activity

I recently had spinal surgery to remove a herniated disk between C7 and T1. The neurosurgeon told me I could no longer ride my motorcycle. I am not convinced that this was a professional opinion as apposed to his personal opinion. Would riding motorcycle cause further damage or present a risk for paralysis? Thank you, Brian
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MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Dear friend, welcome to the medhelp forum. You need to restrict driving for a couple of weeks in case you underwent a cervical fusion along with the disc removal. This duration needs to be discussed with the surgeon. You must avoid lifting any heavy weights, avoid prolonged sitting and caution with sexual activity. This restriction should however not be long-term unless specified by the neurosurgeon due to reasons best known by him. It is possible that a cervical collar would help while you ride a motorcycle.
Discuss with the doctor his reasons for these restrictions. Take care and best of luck to you.





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Avatar universal
Thanks for your reply. The doctor made a comment about seeing too many paralytic injuries from motorcycle accidents. That comment gave me the impression that he was merely giving me his personal opinion. I don't believe he is a proponent of motorcycle riding. My next appointment is not until January, so it will be a while before I know more. I live in Washington state, so not much riding weather until Spring anyhow.
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Avatar universal
I can only imagine he may have been referring to you could not ride your motorcycle for the period of time it takes for complete fusion to take place, which can be anywhere from three months to eighteen months.  On the other hand, it is also possible he may have discovered you had some C7-T1 nerve injury, which controls the muscle dexterity of the hands and fingers and the flexion in the wrist, and thus holding onto the handlebars of a motorcycle would not be reliable.  Then I suppose there is a chance he just felt a lot of hanging onto the bars of a motorcycle would tend to somehow or other negatively affect the fusion site, making it potentially vulnerable, but that is really not based on anything I've read or know; I'm just trying to come up with ideas as to why your surgeon would have said what he did.

I know you are sure you heard this man right, you may have even questioned him on this issue, but it could be there was a slight miscommunication.  I have one particular physician who thinks entirely differently than I do, and I misunderstand him constantly, and he me.  So, since I do not know for sure any reason why he would have said that, with my limited knowledge of fusions,

I think it would be well worth your time to revisit this surgeon, perhaps you have a followup with him before too long, and clarify this point as to WHY he says that, ask him to please explain why you cannot do this activity you like so much, find out if he just meant for six months or whatever.  I mean, for all I know, it was indeed his personal opinion, that if you hurt your back due to a bike crash and he's afraid if you go and get wrecked up again, there is indeed potential for that fusion location to be more likely to give way, which is not something I believe or know.  

I'm just sayinhg, he must have reasons for saying what he did, and he should be able to clear up any questions in your mind at a second visit, maybe he was just talking about holding off on riding the motorcycle until imaging studies show your fusion is strong enough to take riding again, or maybe he will tell you new information that your C7-T1 nerves are never going to function as well as they did pre-injury and pre-surgery, and since that location affects how well your hands and wrists work, bike riding is out.

Let us know what winds up being the facts of the matter whenever you get a chance to speak to the good doctor again.  I hope you don't get banned from doing something you enjoy so much, that's a hard pill to swallow, so I can definitely see why you asked here.  Maybe someone else here knows more than I do about this specific sort of thing, but in the end, only by clearing things up with the doc will you be able to make a decision on your bike situation.
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