Last September, Megadeth mainman Dave Mustaine underwent surgery for stenosis, a neck and spine condition that he says was caused by years of headbanging.
In a March 31 tweet, Mustaine offered the following update on his health: “Got my 6 mos. X-rays 3/30/12 on my neck. Totally fused, and I can FINALLY start exercising. Thank God, and thanks for your prayers.”
Speaking to the Detroit Free Press in February, Mustaine stated about his surgery, “My neck is completely recovered. The surgery was a breeze. The doctor I used … did Peyton Manning‘s surgery. Fortunately, my recovery time has been a lot faster than Peyton‘s. He was in before me and I’m out playing before him. I wish him well in his recovery.”
When asked if he can still headbang, Mustaine said, “I can headbang, but I’ve found with the limitation of, ‘Do I want to headbang or do I want to be in a wheelchair?’ I kind of toned it down a little bit. There’s more body parts you can move around. I mean, I’m not dancing or anything like that but I’m making the best use of it I can.”
Speaking to Decibel magazine last November, Mustaine stated about his neck injury, “The way [2011’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival] ended, with me being hurt, I knew I was hurt, but I didn’t know how bad. Nobody knew the writing was on the wall. I pretty much thought, ‘Well, I”m hurt, but I’ll just take it easy, have a couple of glasses of wine. I’ll get through it, get a couple of trigger point injections, get an epidural.’ There were a couple of times they gave me a shot in my neck that numbed me up. I saw chiropractors and masseuses all the time. It inevitably gets to the point where you’re starting to take medication, and that’s never good, because if you’re taking something and you never feel the pain… You saw Curt Schilling when he was playing for the Diamondbacks, and Randy Johnson; I can’t remember if [Schilling] was playing for the Diamondbacks that time he had the bloody sock or if he’d gone back to Boston or not yet — [he] did some heroic feat where he had his foot put back together and he went out there and played.”
He added, “I’m an athlete, as a guitar player and as an onstage persona. But as far as being a musician that has to do hurdles — I don’t think most musicians, when they start playing music, think that they’re going to be playing this demanding-type music that those of us who are part of the ‘Big Four’ and all the bands we influenced and kind of created [play]. With the advent of the headbanging — which was not my invention, by any means; I’m not like Al Gore who invented the Internet — there was that whole headbanging thing that came around, it’s hurt a lot us… What is headbanging, anyway? It’s kind of like chronic whiplash syndrome, isn’t it?”
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