Do In need surgery

Have a c7 disc protrusion and symptoms have been on for 18 months now.  they include muscle contraction on left and alternately right side.  Have tried physio but improvement has been very limited.  This is the mri result after 6 months from injury:

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Exam  performed:    MR  Cervical  Spine  of  21-JUN-2010:


There  is  a  mild  central  disk  protrusion  at  C5/6,  with  no  associated  neural  compression.    

Normal  appearance  of  the  cervical  cord  with  a  normal  position  of  the  cranio-cervical  junction.  No  evidence  of  myelomalacia.  
Cervical  spine  alignment  is  preserved  with  a  normal  appearance  of  the  atlanto-  axial  joint,  and  normal  marrow  signal  return.  
No  evidence  of  canal  stenosis.



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Thanks

[ggreg]

At least your physical therapy helped a little, so perhaps do a little more.  Also, swimming is very good for people who have injured spines, takes all the weight off the back and thus corrective movement can progress faster.  You are also supposed to be taking pain medications, because a protruding disk can hurt pretty badly, even tho supposedly the MRI radiologist says it's not causing nerve compression.  The PT and meds is the conservative treatment that most doctors will do, to avoid surgery.  If you ARE getting pain medicines, then could be you need a new dose or a new kind, so you will get total relief.  If you ARE NOT receiving pain medicines, that is ridiculous, you should most definitely press to get those, it's not fair that you have been miserable for a year-and-a-half now.

Now, if you decide you do want surgery, first get a second opinion, have your MRI pictures and report forwarded from your current doc's office over to the second opinion doc's offices, and he will advise you on the wisdom of getting surgery or not, he'll explain everything that is wrong to you...and if he doesn't, you make him explain.  In this manner, you'll be more prepared to make a decision about surgery.  Spine surgery is tricky, lots of nerves in that area that can become damaged, and then sometimes even after surgery fixes the problem, you could wind up with a whole new set of problems or a worsening of the original problem -- but understand that this is the nature of the beast, spinal surgery is, as I said, tricky.