@birdman518 I think the question is what is causing the nerve pain? It may be a damaged nerve. It may be a compressed or stretched nerve, and you want to release the pressure on it so it stops complaining. The nerves can travel through really small spaces between bones or joints or between bundles of tight or enlarged muscles that press on them and that happens with muscle spasms. If the nerves are triggered by compression or stretching, physical therapy has a chance to try to improve that. Sometimes nerves just need to heal on their own and that takes time, but they also need to avoid further pressure from muscles and poor body alignment. I do remember prior to spinal fusion, when my C5/C6 was collapsed about 50%, so the vertebrae were closer than normal. If I side bent my neck, it caused sharp electrical type pains because the space in the foramen was compressed so the vertebrae bones could touch the nerve roots in that position. Those were very sharp nerve pains due to compression, and they stopped when I straightened my neck. I also had the same type of stabbing electric pain in my hand after a spine epidural injection caused by the injection itself. It may have been an inflammation reaction to the injected material or physical pressure of fluid injected that had nowhere to go. That was an insult to the nerve and my hand was cold sensitive for over a year and a half. That is how long it took the nerve to heal from that injection. That was a new pain that was different.

The second question is, does your painful nerve that is sending electric impulses also trigger a muscle spasm? The Dolphin can calm a nerve down and can help as you heal. My PT used it on the nerve roots where they exited the spine once a week. It helped buy time for me during the time when I could not find a surgeon willing to help me. Calm the nerve, and the muscles it serves will be happier too. Dry needling is treating the muscle, but not stopping the impulses that caused it. Ask your therapist if the spasm would continue if the nerve stops firing an alarm. There is always communication between nerves and their muscles, if not, the muscle withers away, so there must be some communication. There are a lot of neck, shoulder and spine muscles involved that could add to the symptoms and start moving bones around, certainly not your fused levels, but other places along a nerve's path or other spinal levels that can pull on their neighbors because some muscles connect multiple cervical levels to the shoulder blade for example. Those muscles may not be happy about the fusion either.

I will be interested to hear what your physical therapist says.