Originally Posted by Gerryattrick

I had a C3-C4 fusion 22 months ago. I was reasonably diligent with the post-op exercises and kept the neck brace on for the time the doc suggested. I was back riding in around 3-4 months although it could have been a bit sooner if I had been more confident. I did no stationary cycling as I hate it with a vengeance and relied on walking for fitness maintenance. For the first couple of weeks I rode a flat bar bike because I was a bit nervous of the neck position with drop bars, and it was a bit tiring on the neck at first, but I soon got used to it and returned to my road bike.


There were a couple of post-op issues, the first being headaches for a month or three, but the doc told me not to worry because my neck had gone through serious trauma and that was just the nerves and muscles around my head learning to adjust to the slight change in alignment in my neck post-fusion that my head had taken more than 70 years to get used to. He was right and the headaches disappeared after a few months.


The second was some restriction in the rotational and lateral movement in my neck which caused some problems looking over my shoulder when cycling. If I am honest it is still not quite as good as it was pre-op, but I eventually learned to cope with that and it has not lessened my enjoyment of riding. In life off the bike it causes me no problems at all.


I don't know about your op, but the incision for mine was in the front of my neck and they had to move my windpipe to one side to fuse the vertebrae with a metal plate on the inside. I was worried about it affecting my good looks, but my wife said I had nothing to worry about on that issue.