nine days of pain

Background:

* Ten years ago, as I was getting out of bed, I experiences a sharp and severe pain in my neck. I screamed out loud and I could not move. The "epicenter" was on the left side of my neck and sent waves of pain through my upper back, neck, and left shoulder blade. The pain was most severe when I moved my head to the left or up and down. The pain slowly went away over the next three days.

* After a few more occurrences of this over the next few months, I decided to visit the Spine Institute. I was seen by Dr. Casden. He had an MRI taken which showed a bulging disc in my neck, C 4/5 to be specific, and mild stenosis where my column was becoming too narrow to house my cord! jfc!

* Casden recommended I begin stretching regularly and refrain from running and other strenuous exercise (at the time I was running about 30 miles/week). I asked him if it was something I should worry about, and could I eventually continue running. He explained that he was also a runner and that I shouldn't worry about it. The alternative, he said, was surgery, but he didn't recommend that as my issue seemed minor. The time off from running along with regular stretching seemed to work for me. The pain went away and I didn't have another episode for a while.

* Throughout the last ten years, however, I have had similar episodes (anywhere from 2 - 6 per year). It typically occurs in the exact same spot on the left side of my upper back and neck (aside from one recent episode that occurred on the opposite side). Every one of these episodes slowly subsided after two or three days.

* It's difficult to determine exactly what triggers these episodes as they are fairly random: sleeping awkwardly, turning head quickly, swinging a golf club, etc.

* This most recent episode, on May 29th, occurred while golfing. The location of the pain and the severity is similar to virtually all previous episodes, however, unlike the previous times, this one has persisted for over nine days, with minimal improvement.

* I just made another appointment with Casden and we'll see what's happening now. Perhaps surgery is an option now? I'll do anything that gets rid of this pain, aside from, perhaps, removing the discs and fusing bone together... anything that spares my crummy golf game from suffering further.