My Island

BY Alison Murphy  MY...Hell...opathy Laughing & living with Cervical Myelopathy​Yesterday, my husband dropped me off at the swimming baths.  The large float around my waist and my cycling style of swimming does raise a smile or two. Some call me a ninja turtle, some the barnacle woman.  Today my predicament was in the changing room.  With my combination lock.  I tried it, retried it, again and again to no avail.  It wasn't the wrong combination; it's [...]

Neck Muscles and CSM/DCM

​ By Timothy BoergerReviewed by B.DaviesNeck Muscles and CSM– An Update Part 1 of 2 ​This will be the first of a 2 part mini-series on the properties of muscles in the neck and how they impacts outcomes of surgery. We previously looked at this following an early piece of research from North America.  This series will serve as an update on this research. Why was this study conducted?As outlined previously, the amount of fat found within muscles has been linked [...]

More to Myelopathy than meets the eye

By O.MowforthEdited by B.DaviesWe don’t really know what symptoms a “typical” patient with myelopathy has. In fact, the huge number of often quite subtle and non-specific symptoms is probably one of the main reasons why early diagnosis is so challenging (Davies et al., 2018).  When medical students prepare for exams they tend to learn stereotypical descriptions of conditions. For myelopathy, this might be a patient with walking problems and clumsy hands.​Howeve [...]

Community Champion Frank Dutton shares his top fundraising tips

As a Myelopathy.org Community Champion, I had the honour of holding the charity’s first fundraiser at my local football club. Community Champion Frank Dutton Myelopathy.org and Myelopathy Support on Facebook have been a great help for both me and my wife since my diagnosis in 2016. Since then, life has been difficult to say the least. Cervical myelopathy, and the accidents it has caused, have led to me going under the knife for no less than six major surgeries. These have significantly a [...]

Neck Muscles and CSM– An Update Part 2 of 2

By Timothy BoergerReviewed by B.Davies​Neck Muscles and CSM– An Update Part 2 of 2​This second of a 2-part mini-series on the properties of muscles in the neck and how they impact outcomes of surgery. We previously looked at this following an early piece of research from North America.  This series will serve as an update on this research.Why was this study conducted?For a short recap of the previous 2 blogs related to this: how much fat there is within muscles has b [...]

Heart Break for Myelopathy

Risk of acute coronary syndrome in patients with cervical spondylosis ​J.Hamilton What were the aims of the study? Various studies in the past have described cervical spondylosis (CS), the degenerative changes in the cervical bones and ligaments contributing to degenerative cervical myelopathy, as associated with increased sympathetic nervous tone[1][2].The sympathetic nervous system plays a role in controlling blood [...]