I've heard various statistics about how often the disk above or below fails after a cervical fusion. I know a few chiropractors and interestingly right after my fusion one of them told me that after 5 years alot of people have trouble above and below. It was 5 years to the day that I was back getting an MRI because of headaches and shoulder/arm pain. The disk I'm getting replaced now is herniated worse then the first one but its more in the middle and I've been able to wait. The first time I had significant arm atrophe, weakness and finger tip numbness so I needed to act.

Interestingly I was told that they've found that the C7-T1 disk is really tough for some reason so the domino affect usually stops there.