@chcruzin
I am 54 years old and can move my head and neck pretty well and don’t notice a significant change in range of motion. I actually think that my range of motion improved after the surgery due to reduction in pain and stiffness in my neck. Do you have symptoms from spinal cord compression? If so, you will want to stop the damage to the spinal cord since it affects brain signals/communications to your body below the level of the cervical spine injury. I live in RI and went to a spine surgeon who was highly rated (Dr. Ian Madom at OrthoRI). The hospital he practices at also had good ratings. It is a smaller hospital but overall good experience. I could have gone to Massachusetts General Hospital but chose to stay local due to the online reviews/ratings. I will go to him when I need to get lumbar surgery. The ACDF surgery was outpatient (went in early morning and supposed to come home late in day but they kept me overnight to monitor due to drop in blood pressure during surgery. I don’t think the actual ACDF surgery was more than 2 hours. I don’t recall recovery being too long afterwards. I worked remotely at the time and was able to work on my laptop while lying in bed. It wasn’t too bad and I was just a bit cautious in the beginning when moving my head/neck around. My symptoms seemed to quickly improve soon after surgery so glad I did it. I know I am in store for more spine surgeries due to congenital spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease. I’m delaying lumbar surgery with spinal injections to help manage spin. I am getting a hip MRI tomorrow to see where the source of pain is coming from and if injections would help. Good luck doing your research and making decisions that are best for you!