[Guest]

I'm a 30 yr old cellist. In two weeks I will have an anterior cervical diskectomy on a large herniated disc at C6-7. The herniation was discovered 8 years ago, when I found myself in the emergency room with the feeling of lightening bolts shooting out my arms and legs (though I wasn't injured...just woke up feeling like I had slept on my neck wrong, then participated in a dance class, did a handstand, felt the lightning bolts). The neurosurgeon then said I was too young to have an operation, that I should wait and hope it gets better. The pain eventually went away. Perhaps 4 times in the last 8 years have I felt the same kind of pain, but never nearly as acute. BUT...for the last 4 years or so, I have had gradually increasing problems with weakness in my right arm/hand which severely affects my bow arm (I'm a professional cellist; this is how I earn my living). I just thought I was somehow too tense, needed to hold the bow in a more relaxed way. I never made the connection between disc and arm weakness...UNTIL...about a month ago the neck pain came back with a vengance, and this time I lost all use of my right tricep along with it (and had severe weakness and uncoordination in right hand). I had another MRI showing increased herniation of the disc and so now face surgery. I'm relieved to know that there's a real explanation for my bow-arm problems, and hope that surgery will correct this along with relieving the neck pain. MY QUESTION IS: since I've had this worsening weakness for 4 years, how likely is it that muscles in my hand have atrophied or that I've done permanent nerve damage? The muscle between my thumb and index finger appears visibly smaller in my right hand. This is an important muscle for holding the bow and what gives me most problems. Can atrophied muscles regenerate? Pardon my ingnorance.