A Pinched Nerve in my Neck

 

Three years ago I had a pinched nerve in my neck. The neck did not hurt too bad but because of the nerves pinched on my left side, my shoulder and arm hurt like hell. It was the worst experience of my life. For almost three months I could not sleep more than 20 minutes at a time. I worked with the pain for over six weeks before I said enough was enough and I took time out of work. I don’t want to sound like a baby, but sometimes it felt as though I had a knife in my flesh and it was twisting. Other times it felt like a shooting pain that would move up and down my arm. I had to sleep sitting up because it hurt too much to lie down

Finally after three months, an MRI, and a month of intense physical therapy the pain subsided. Because my nerves were pinched for so long I lost a lot of feeling in my left bicep muscle and my left hand was weakened to half strength. It took a couple years to get the numbness out of my arm and I’d say within the last six months I regained most of my strength.   Unfortunately, after I took off the time to heal, my job had been eliminated. So I was out of work for a while.

Why do I tell you all this? Guess what I have again? Yup I have a pinched nerve in my neck again. It happened about ten days ago. I feel I am lucky that the pain is not nearly as excruciating as last time. Also on the bright side, I think it is already beginning to heal. I have slept in my bed the last three nights without too much discomfort. I still wake up ten times a night, but that is better than every twenty minutes.  I am optimistic that within the week I will be pain free.  

Needless to say, I have not been very active. Since I got hurt, I went fishing a couple of times. It sounds crazy to fish and risk further damage, but I think casting the pole loosens up some of the muscles. I am scared to death of reinjuring my neck or having a set back so I am past the point of careful. I am using my wrist to cast with very little upper arm movement. The little muscles in my shoulders I am using I am careful not to fatigue. I cannot risk losing my job again, so I need to heal this as quickly as possible.

I tell you all this because I have not put up any fishing reports in a while. Now you know why. Unfortunately for me, the winter time fishery for stripers has been very good so far. I could be cleaning up. I had my best month ever in November for stripers, and I am sure this could have been my best December ever if I wasn’t laid up.

The times I went fishing this is how I did; I went for sea run white perch one afternoon and caught quite a few thanks to a tip I got. I used my freshwater rod and had a blast for a couple hours.  It was cold that day and that felt really good to my neck muscles.
Last night I caught three schoolies in an hour and half fishing. I felt a little pain in my shoulder when I got home, so I think I might have to suck it up and take a couple weeks off from fishing. It’s weird that sometimes a little exercise makes my neck/shoulder feel so much better and then days like last night made it hurt more than it had in three days.  Stay tuned…?