I had a cervical fusion about 7 years ago and was told to stay off bicycles unless I sat completely upright. Well, that completely sucked but I did it for 6 years by basically doing only really short rides (6-8 miles), say about 2 a month (or less) but ignored the advise about being completely upright. About a year ago I was having neck/arm discomfort and had neck injections by a physical med doctor followed by PT. Well this was a god-send for my PT was a sports specialist who insisted that the original no serious bicycling advice was rubbish and put me on an exercise plan to restore my ability to do serious rides. And it worked! In the last year I've done rides (40+ miles) I've not done in nearly 10 years, and not only that I've been doing these rides twice a week for months now...no problems! Whatever you do, stay away from chiropractors (been there, done that, made things worse). Hopefully your story can be the same...find the right physical med doctor and PT to get you on track, that did wonders for me.