Hi Rob
wish you a speedy recovery too. can you please tell how bad was your weakness to begin with and have you noticed any change/ improvement so far in last 2 weeks? what have you been told about the recovery of muscle strength by your doc? how many weeks/ months have you had your symptoms before you underwent surgery?
You can actually add information about your diagnosis under your signature as many of us have done, you need to go to the "UserCP" tab on left side of screen at the top.

foraminotomy
 

My weakness was noticeable but did not prohibit me from doing my job. I have atrophy in left trap, tricep, and forearm. Back in Oct 2007 I regained strength after physical therapy and doc at time said since the pain is gone lets not do surgery. But my problem returned in Feb 2009 after startign rock climbing and lifting weights again. I did not do a new EMG but I can tell it is weaker and my arm is about an inch smaller than the right side.

Hey Rob,
my first symptoms of pain happened on 4/10/09, with pain in neck and rt arm, over next few days pain was worse and then slight weakness in right arm at wrist and abduction at shoulder and some weakness at biceps. Got the surgery done on 5/6/09, which was 20 days after my first MRI. the radiating pain of the right arm has almost disappeared, but the weakness is still there and I do expect it to take some time as every1 says it takes at least 6-12 weeks to recover. I have not noticed any appreciable atrophy of the muscles so far - may be its early, but this is just such a frustrating feeling to know that your dominant hand is weaker than it used to be, it fatigues so easily, unable to do many things which it could do without having to rest and besides that not knowing whether or not and if it will - how much will recover?
I do understand you have had similar problems and I wanted to ask you that :
1) Since your surgery, have you noticed any improvement in the muscle power.
2) What kind of expectations have been set by your doctor for the recovery of muscle power - I did notice that your doctor said - the weakness is not noticeable easily - Ya I know - to him it is not - but to you, it is since its your hand.
3) Have you thought of or Do you know of any other means (exercise, PT, Supplements etc.) to help improve the chances of gaining back the muscle power we have lost, besides the fact that we underwent surgery to give it the best shot at recovery? I have not been suggested any PT by my doctor and I do believe he is a terrific spine surgeon. What's your take on this?

awaiting some insight from you
BTW, I am an internist in training, planning to go back to work next week. ( I have been on leave for last 5 weeks)

foramnitomy
 

to answer questions:
1) since surgery I have been told not to lift anything over 10lbs so i have been avoiding anything that violates that, except for a few times lol. so NO I cannot say either way if there is improvement yet.
2)Doc has not addressed to me course of action, I do nto see him until June 11 (6 weeks post op).
3) PT in the past helped me, no supplements, hitting the gym hard helped hypertrophy muscles that do receive the signals from uncompressed portions of the nerve. But as a bio-medical engineer i know if the electrical signal is interrupted to the affected muscles how in the heck are these muscles going to improve if they do not receive any signals from the nerve. I have no idea if the injured nerve is permanently damaged or not, how do we know?
I have wishful thinking that over time the nerve will recover but I will never know if my C7 nerve root is fully funtional or not as of now.