I was in a severe car accident a year or so ago and ruptured a disc in my neck. It began pressing on my brachial nerve root. The pain down my arm was debilitating and my arm began to atrophy and severely weaken. My neuro suggested PT, which I completed. The symptoms continued so I had surgery to remove the insult from the nerve.
The problem is, once a nerve had been pressed on, it does not "bounce back" once the insult is removed.. It causes an injury not unlike a heart attack where the tissue (nerve) is deprived of oxygen and falls dormant or dies. This in turn denervates the motor neurons at the connecting point to the muscle and without constant innervation, those motor neurons in turn die.
After surgery, one does not know if or how long it will take to regain anything.
So I started to research supplements to help with this and came across an encouraging read on a drug called Rilozole a.k.a. Rilutek. It seems it may be beneficial for my purposes but also for neurogenesis in the body in general. We always talk about brain neurogenesis/protection here but we may be neglecting to address the declining neuron health in our bodies as we age as well. Find the paper here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3136727/
I'd like to know thoughts on this. It's been six months since my surgery. Would it still help if I took this? Any idea where to get it? Neuro won't prescribe as it's "off label". What might be the unwanted or dangerous side effect?
Any other ideas of supplements that may help me? Things like Uridine seem to help in the brain but would this translate into the nerves in the body as well? It seems that I may have axon damage as well since my improvement since surgery has been minimal.
