{"id": "87245929", "language": "en", "duration": 382.23, "text": "Pinched nerve in the neck? Watch this. The surgeon put a titanium plate on the desk. It was about two inches long with four screws. He pushed it toward me and said, this is it Phil, this is your only option. I stared at that piece of metal. He wanted a slice open the front of my throat, move my windpipe to the side, drill that plate into my spine, fuse my C5 and C6 vertebrae together forever. I asked him, what happens if I don't do it? He leaned back and said, then you better get used to the numbness in your hands because eventually you won't be able to hold a coffee cup. I'm 50 years old, I'm a carpenter. My hands are my life. If I can't hold a hammer, I can't feed my family. I walked out of that office with a date on the calendar, ACDF Spinal Fusion, September 14th. I had six weeks, six weeks until I became a bionic man, six weeks until I spent three months in a hard plastic collar, unable to drive, unable to work, unable to turn my head. I went home and I did what everyone tells you not to do. I went down the rabbit hole. I went on the forums. I read stories about failed back surgery syndrome. I read about people whose screws came loose. I read about adjacent segment disease where fusing one disc puts so much pressure on the others that they blow out too and you end up needing another surgery in five years. And then I found something that terrified me even more. I read a post from a guy who found out after the surgery that he was allergic to the nickel in the titanium plate. His body was rejecting the metal screwed into his spine. I looked at my wedding ring, white gold. I get a rash if I wear cheap watches. Was I allergic? Was I about to put a time bomb in my neck? I couldn't sleep. The pain in my neck was a constant grinding toothache. My fingers were tingling like they were asleep, 24 hours a day. It was 3 a.m. on a Tuesday. I was sitting at my kitchen table, staring at my calendar, counting down the days to September 14th. I typed alternatives to neck fusion into Google for the 100th time. I saw this video. It was an adductor. It was a guy just like me. He was talking about decompression. He said something that stuck with me. He said surgery locks the door. Decompression opens it. He was talking about the hug terra. I had seen ads for neck hammocks. I had seen the inflatable collars that looked like free donuts around your neck. I thought they were jokes. But this was different. This device claimed to use dynamic traction to pull the vertebrae apart at a specific 26 degree angle. The logic was simple. My disc was bulging because it was being squashed. The surgeon wanted to remove the disc and fuse the bones. This device wanted to unsquash the disc so it could suck back in. I looked at the price. It was less than my copay for one MRI. I ordered it. I didn't tell my wife. I didn't want her to think I was grasping at straws. I just wanted to try one last thing before I let them throat open. It arrived four days later. I took it out to the garage. I didn't want anyone to see me using it. I laid it on my yoga mat. I lay down. I felt the cradle grip the base of my skull. Turned it on. It started to lift. Now I've had chiropractors pull on my head before. It usually feels aggressive. This felt precise. It felt like a slow, steady hydraulic lift. It pulled and held. For the first time in five years, the grinding noise in my neck stopped. I laid there for 15 minutes. The heat was soaking into my traps. The EMS was pulsing. But it was the traction that made me cry. I'm a grown man. I don't cry. But the relief of that pressure coming off my nerve was so intense, tears just leaked out of my eyes. It stood up. The tingling in my fingers was still there. I wasn't cured. But the grinding was gone. I used it the next morning and the next. With one, I noticed I could look over my shoulder to back the truck out of the driveway without turning my whole torso. With two, the tingling in my pinky finger stopped. Just stopped. Week three. I woke up and I realized I hadn't taken an Advil in three days. September 14th was getting closer. It was one week away. I had a pre-op appointment with the surgeon. I walked in, ready to go over the anesthesia. I told him I want another MRI. Besides, he said, Phil, nothing changes in six weeks. The disc is herniated. It's mechanical. I said, humor me. I'm paying for it. He sent me downstairs. I got the scan. I waited in the office. He came back in. He wasn't holding the titanium plate this time. He was holding the film. He put it up on the light box. He stared at it. He took his glasses off. He said, I don't know what you've been doing, but the compression on the C6 nerve root, it's gone. The disc had magically vanished. It was still a little beat up, but it had retracted enough just a few millimeters that it was no longer crushing the nerve. He looked at me and said, I can't operate on this. There's nothing to fix. I walked out of that office. I got in my truck and I called the hospital to cancel my surgery. That was two years ago. I still have the dates September 14th circled on my calendar in the garage. I keep it there to remind me how close I came to making a mistake I couldn't undo. I still use the hug tarot not every day anymore be twice a week to keep things loose, just to keep the sponge hydrated. My hands are strong. I can hold a hammer. I can feel every texture of the wood I sand. I'm not saying surgery is never the answer. Sometimes you need the plate, but before you let them drill into your spine, before you lock the door forever, shouldn't you try opening it first? I spent less than $150 on a plastic device and it saved me from a $50,000 surgery. If you're staring at a calendar date, if you're scared of the knife, just try this. You have nothing to lose but the pain and you have your whole life to gain back. Click the link, get the hug tarot. Give it two weeks. Maybe you can cancel your September 14th too.", "word_count": 1165, "first_15s": "Pinched nerve in the neck? Watch this. The surgeon put a titanium plate on the desk. It was about two inches long with four screws. He pushed it toward me and said, this is it Phil, this is your only option. I stared at that piece of metal. He wanted a slice", "first_30s": "Pinched nerve in the neck? Watch this. The surgeon put a titanium plate on the desk. It was about two inches long with four screws. He pushed it toward me and said, this is it Phil, this is your only option. I stared at that piece of metal. He wanted a slice open the front of my throat, move my windpipe to the side, drill that plate into my spine, fuse my C5 and C6 vertebrae together forever. I asked him, what happens if I don't do it?"}