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Fractured C-2

3K views 18 replies 5 participants last post by  mrallen 
#1 ·
So I did my best impression of a lawn dart Tuesday evening on a group ride. Rung my bell a little, and my neck immediately "tightened up". I ended up walking out and driving myself home. Tried icing my neck when I got home but within about a 1/2 hour, I realized that my neck was feeling worse in-stead of better. Got a buddy to come pick me up and take me to the ER. After about 3 hours of waiting, They finally send me back for a CT scan of my head and neck. After the scan was finished, the tech suddenly got real serious and was like, "Don't move". He said "I'm just a tech and I'm not allowed to interpret images. But, if I was allowed to interpret images, I'd say that there's a 90% chance that your C-2 vertebrae is fractured in at least 1 place. After that it was hurry up and wait for a few more hours to get transferd to the local trauma center. Then is was 20 people working on me at once, cutting clothes off, 5 CT stans (with and without die), and MRI and 5 standard film X-rays. After initial trauma center eval, it was on to surgical ICU. Final decision was no surgery needed. Just got home from the hospital. Now stuck in a C-spine collar for the next 6 weeks minimum....Not too fun.
 
#12 ·
So I've been riding at least a couple days a week for quite a while. Riding wise, the neck is pretty much a non-issue. My biggest riding problem is still just getting out of my own head when things get chunky & steep down hill. Stuff that used to make me pucker a little, but let the bike roll over gets an immediate "nope" response.... Otherwise, still lots of popping & cracking. Numbness is probably a little better (comes & goes now). Driving is a pain because of the reduced mobility.
 
#4 ·
Hey Man...Heal up and take it slow. Do your rehab PT when/if perscribed. I've fractured C5/C6 and T12. Long time in the brace and only truely learned that I didn't need surgery once it all settled down - so be prepared to be re-eval'd a few more times. Anyway as you said, you're fortunate nothing worse and while it may take a while- you'll be back in the saddle riding just as before.
 
#6 ·
Update:
I finally got the cervical collar off on Friday and was released to return to work (light duty and flexible schedule). Officially, I'm being "weened off" of the collar, but its been a couple days now and I can't imagine my neck getting sore/tired enough to make me put that damn thing back on.
Doc says no "high risk activities" for the next 2 months. My wife was in the office with me and made sure to get the doctor to specifically say no road or mountain biking :(.

Neck is still very stiff with pretty limited movement.

I guess it's time to get on the trainer and see how my neck tolerates that....
 
#7 ·
17 week update. The doc released me to"resume normal activities" just over a week ago, but still doesn't want me to go to PT. Range of motion is still pretty limited and may always be. On the plus side, I have ridden 6 days in the last 9. Starting to up the intensity/difficulty a little, but having trouble getting out of my own head when things start getting steep going down. Hoping that and my range of motion will improve.
 
#13 ·
I'm a fairly new member of the broken "C2" club myself. Fractured mine on July 27, same story, docs were on the fence as to do surgery or not. Spent the week in ICU as I had some vertibal artery damage as well. He chose the conservative route and put me in a Miami J C collar for 3 months. I have 8 days left in it. Did you have any displacement or alignment issues?
 
#14 ·
Yes. I still have a "significant misalignment" between c2 and c3. Sometimes the doc would say that. Other times he would just call it a "slip". Basically, when looking at a side view, c2 has shifted forward a very noticeable amount. I think this is what caused my reduced range of motion. The spinal doc, basically forbid me to see a PT or chiropractor.
 
#16 ·
I still have reduced range of motion. It's still a pretty regular occurrence that my neck will appt of "lock up" and when I force it to move, I get a loud "pop". It feels weird and is scary at first, but after a while I got used to it. I've also learned to avoid keeping my neck in positions that seem to make it lock up consistently.
 
#17 ·
Notso,

I just going to suggest that you get a second opinion on what to do about the misalignment. You may have done so already, but I didn't see it in the thread. My wife displaced C6/7 a few years ago and even without any fractures, she wrecked her spinal cord. She's lucky to have some quality of life, but if that happens at C2, you're pretty much watching TV for the rest of your life with someone else changing the channels for you.

If I had a displacement at C2 that caused ANY numbness, I would look for anything they could do to ensure that the pressure on my spinal cord was eliminated. Good luck in finding a permanent solution.
 
#18 ·
mrallen,

I don't know if you saw the dates on this thread or not. My injury was over 2 years ago. At some point (maybe 6 months), I realized that I didn't have any numbness anymore. It's been that way ever since. As I said above, I still have reduced range of motion and get plenty of "popping and cracking", but otherwise it's a non-issue.
 
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