I Suffer From Cervical Spondylosis. Here are 3 Tools That Help Me Manage It.

Nightmare Turned Into a Reminder

I still remember it as clearly as the day it happened.

I started getting a weird pain in my back and eventually, my neck started hurting.

I had been exercising regularly at this point and it was something I’d never experienced before.

After literally a whole year of investigation with the doctors, it turned out I had Cervical Spondylosis. Sounds fancy huh..?

Here’s my story and why it's going to make me stronger than before.

Firstly, what the heck is Cervical Spondylosis?

To put it very simply, it means that the discs in your spine, in particular the neck region, are wearing down.

As they wear down, the bones of the spine tend to compress closer to one another, and the nerves that are found in between them get compressed, leading to more complications for the rest of the body.

As they wear down more and more, the bones of the spine may start rubbing against each other, and lead to bony spurs.

The most frustrating part, till today, was not knowing what was the actual cause of this.

some of the symptoms that I experienced included:

Constant discomfort in the neck as well as the traps and upper back region

Numbness that goes all the way down to your fingers

Weakness in one side of your hand

It was mentally difficult at first.

While I was still trying to figure out the diagnosis, I didn't want to make things worse, so for about 5 months, I stopped hitting the gym and exercising.

Fitness was a huge part of my life before this. I would go to the gym day in and day out as part of my routine, and I would always treat my body like a temple.

Taking this out was like taking a piece out of me.

I had no clue about what I had to do to make things easier then, and it always hurt when I tried to do something.

So the safest thing was to just not do anything that causes pain.

I was depressed.

I felt horrible, both physically and mentally, and I kept asking myself if this was what my life was going to be like for the rest of my life.

I lost the motivation to eat healthily and at some points even stopped moving around, only to find out that I was doing more harm to my body, just that I did not know then.

I was going for things such as physio, but with the long waiting time for the doctors to get back and physio not helping much, it felt like a lost cause.

Then I found the solutions.

After getting news about my initial diagnosis, I went to another doctor, unfortunately, someone who was more expensive.

But within two weeks. I was almost 80% better than before.

Here’s what happened.

He gave the same diagnosis and sent me to another physiotherapist.

He did an interesting technique called Traction.

Basically what happens is that a device pulls your head up, in an attempt to stretch our neck, and in that effect stretch ot your spine so that your spine is not as compressed as before.

I felt so much better after this. I could feel myself coming back.

I started getting back into exercising and it felt great.

I could feel my life getting back together.

However, this was short-lived.

I then started getting the familiar pain again and again and had to go back a couple of times.

I wondered if I was doing anything wrong.

I went to do some research on this topic as well as focused on what I was doing daily and realized there could have been a few factors that were making this come back repeatedly.

Posture

I never really focused much on this, until this unfortunate event happened.

I noticed that I slouch often, and look down at my phone with that default neck scroll posture, which honestly looked horrible.

Poor posture also leads to some horrible consequences like putting unwanted strains on parts of your body that are in an unnatural position.

Not to mention changing your body physiologically, which could affect other bodily processes.

And let’s face it, someone who stands up tall as opposed to someone who stands all slouched gives off a different vibe when approaching people or in various settings. It's always good to have great posture.

Sitting down

Back then I was not one about movement.

After a while, it occurred to me that sitting down for extended periods was one of the trigger points for me experiencing pain again.

Now I don’t know what the actual mechanisms are at play here or how it affects my neck, but one thing for sure was that I did not want to have to experience this all the time.

I knew I had to change and not just be active in the effect of exercising but also in daily movement.

I talked more about sitting down here and was completely fascinated by what I learned.

Exercise selection

This was an unfortunate one for me.

I loved doing heavy lifts like deadlifts. But as I went back into the gym and performed the same movements, the pain came back.

Again this might have something to do with the mechanics of it all but unfortunately, it was something I had to forgo as a way of pain management.

I had to be more selective with my exercises, as well as paying more attention to my form.

Thankfully over time, I found the right mix that did not make the pain worse.

How I’m Moving forward from here.

To be completely honest, the pain still comes and goes.

This has become a daily task to manage pain.

To re-iterate, there are three things that I focus on every day that help me, and perhaps something you should include in your daily life.

Posture

I always ensure that I keep my body upright and proper whenever I realize I’m slouching.

The good (but also bad) thing is that the pain starts coming back when I know I have poor posture.

One cool trick that I like to think of is imagining that someone has a rope tied to the top of your head and they are pulling it up.

You’ll notice a cool difference and you’ll even feel taller too!

Sitting

This one is simple, just making sure I don't sit for too long. I make an effort to remember to stand and sit and I tend to alternate between these two while I work.

I’m standing right now as I type this!

Excercise selection

From now on I’m shifting my focus to working with exercises that are safe and help my body with different ailments, like the ones that I talked about here.

I think it's important to not let your ego get in the way especially if you’re lifting heavy because you might just be doing more harm than good.

These steps not only help with my condition, but they also help to improve my quality of life to a great extent.

It's quite sad that a diagnosis like this had to be a turning point for me to pay more attention to these factors, but better this than never.

Keep going! Let me know if you have any health outcomes and how you are managing them!