“How long do damaged nerves in neck take to heal?”

I can tell you from personal experience when my C6 nerve root was crushed I got some movement back in about 4 months, and the strength was about 95% back to normal after a year. And that’s as good as it got. The farther away the paralyzed muscles are from your neck, the longer it will take. So C7 and C8 will take longer than that, with a higher chance of not getting everything back.

Nerves can heal up to three years, but very little improvement is seen in the third year. After three years, this will be where the nerve will stay.

Nerves that have been damaged due to trauma or simply prolonged compression vary in length of recovery. While it is impossible to predict the extent of recovery, especially in the case of prolonged nerve injury, I often advise my patients that it may take up to a year to appreciate the full extent of recovery and where they are at one-year mark is likely what to expect longterm. There are out-of-norm exceptions to this rule as with any other concept in medicine and some patients may continue to recover further past the 12-month mark. Hope this helps.

Saeed Sadrameli, MD
Endoscopic/Minimally Invasive and Complex Spine Surgeon
Orlando Neurosurgery