@mincer I had all kinds of symptoms, some were sharp pains like burning or electric shocks. Those were more serious nerve compression pains. I also had tingling or numbness, and sometimes muscles jumping with spontaneous contractions. Because my C5/C6 disc had collapsed 50%, it made the space between the vertebrae smaller where the nerve roots exit the spine. If I side bent my neck in that condition, I got a strong burning pain because I knew it contacted those nerves which otherwise were not complaining.

I also had burning electrical pain from an epidural steroid injection in my neck, so I never did that again. I lived with that electric shock pain hitting me randomly for a few months before it subsided. My symptoms did progress and get worse over time. I started tracking it on a drawing of a body diagram after the spine injection and I saw how it was progressing all the time. I was under the care of a physical therapist at the time, and she bought me some time before surgery, but clearly it was getting worse.

If you are already at burning pain all the time, that is a lot to live with, and surgeons should be listening to you and figuring out what is causing that pain. I did have some facial pain too and neck spasms were affecting my jaw and throwing that all out of alignment. When my symptoms first began it was minor when I turned my head, I got a pain in my ankle, but over 2 years time, that had progressed a lot to where I could side bend my neck and cause an electric shock. My symptoms also changed location when I changed the position of my neck depending on how my spinal cord was positioned inside the central spinal canal. That kind of information is important to communicate to your physician.

It's critical the way the skull sits on top of the spine and the alignment of the jaw. You may want to look at this link that gives technical information:

What are your doctors telling you about your condition?