What Are the Symptoms of a C2 Spinal Injury?

The spinal cord is divided into four segments: cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral. Together, they make up a vital part of the body's central processing nervous system; injury to the spinal cord can be grave and sometimes fatal. The cervical part of the spinal cord lies in the neck. Injuries occurring at the second cervical vertebrae, known as C2, manifest through a particular constellation of symptoms and signs.

Respiratory Dysfunction

As stated by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Spinal Cord Injury Information Network, an injury in the upper cervical region of the spinal cord—vertebrae C1 through C3—will cause complete paralysis of breathing muscles. This occurs because all the nerve signals sent by the brain originate at a higher level. An injury at C2 will interrupt the nervous system's signals to the muscles responsible for breathing. The muscles paralyzed by such an injury include the diaphragm, the chest and abdominal muscles, and the neck muscles. If the injury is complete and the spinal cord is completely transected at this level, the patient will lose the ability to breathe spontaneously and will need a ventilator.

Muscle Paralysis

The Merck Manuals Online Medical Library notes that injury of the spinal cord at C2 will result in complete or partial paralysis of all four limbs and trunk muscles. The muscles comprising the anal and bladder sphincters are also paralyzed causing the patient to lose voluntary control over urination and defecation. If the spinal cord is severely injured, the patient could remain paralyzed for life. If the injury is partial, however, the patient may regain some movement, particularly of the trunk muscles.

Sensory Loss

The nerves responsible for delivering sensation also pass through the spinal cord. Each spinal cord segment gives sensory supply to an area of the skin called a dermatome. All sensations are relayed to the brain via the spinal cord in order to provide feeling.

According to the American Spinal Injury Association, C2 provides sensory supply to the area over the back of the head and the top part of the neck. Injury at the C2 level will cause the patient to be totally deprived of sensations below that level because of the interruption of the pain pathway and the nerve signals going to the brain.

Spinal Cord Injury With Bowel Care

You or a caregiver can manage your bowel problems to prevent unplanned bowel movements,constipation, and diarrhea. Although this often seems overwhelming at first, knowing what to do and establishing a pattern makes bowel care easier and reduces your risk of accidents.

A spinal cord injury generally affects the process of eliminating waste from the intestines, causing a:Reflexive bowel. This means you cannot control when a bowel movement occurs.

Flaccid bowel. This means you can't have a bowel movement. If stool remains in the rectum, mucus and fluid will sometimes leak out around the stool and out the anus. This is called fecal incontinence.

Bowel programs

When choosing a way to deal with bowel problems, you and your rehab team will discuss such things as the type of bowel problem you have, your diet, whether you or a caregiver will do the program, and any medicines that may affect your program.

For a reflexive bowel, you may use a stool softener, a suppository to trigger the bowel movement, and/or stimulation with your finger (digital stimulation). There are many stool softeners and suppositories available. You will have to experiment to find what works best for you.

For a flaccid bowel, you may use digital stimulation and manual removal of the stool. At first, you do this program every other day. Later, you may need to do it more often to prevent accidents. You may also have to adjust how much and when you eat.


Eating more fiber can help some people who have spinal cord injuries manage their bowel habits. Good sources of fiber include whole-grain breads and cereals, fruits, and vegetables.

What are Symptoms of Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is an injury to the spinal cord resulting in a change, either temporary or permanent, in the cord's normal motor, sensory, or autonomic function Common causes of damage are trauma . The spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss of function to occur. Depending on where the spinal cord andnerve roots are damaged, the symptoms can vary widely, from pain to paralysis to incontinence.

Signs recorded by a clinician and symptoms experienced by a patient will vary depending on where the spine is injured and the extent of the injury. These are all determined by the area of the body that the injured area of the spine innervates. A section of skin innervatedthrough a specific part of the spine is called a dermatome, and spinal injury can cause pain, numbness, or a loss of sensation in the relevant areas. A group of muscles innervated through a specific part of the spine is called a myotome, and injury to the spine can cause problems with voluntary motor control. The muscles may contract uncontrollably, become weak, or be completely paralysed. The loss of muscle function can have additional effects if the muscle is not used, including atrophy of the muscle and bone degeneration.

A severe injury may also cause problems in parts of the spine below the injured area. In a "complete" spinal injury, all functions below the injured area are lost. An "incomplete" spinal cord injury involves preservation of motor or sensory function below the level of injury in the spinal cord. If the patient has the ability to contract the anal sphincter voluntarily or to feel a pinprick or touch around the anus, the injury is considered to be incomplete. The nerves in this area are connected to the very lowest region of the spine, the sacralregion, and retaining sensation and function in these parts of the body indicates that the spinal cord is only partially damaged. This includes a phenomenon known as sacral sparing which involves the preservation of cutaneous sensation in the sacral dermatomes, even though sensation is impaired in the thoracic and lumbar dermatomes below the level of the lesion. Sacral sparing may also include the preservation of motor function (voluntary external anal sphincter contraction) in the lowest sacral segments. Sacral sparing has been attributed to the fact that the sacral spinal pathways are not as likely as the other spinal pathways to become compressed after injury. The sparing of the sacral spinal pathways can be attributed to the lamination of fibers within the spinal cord.

A complete injury frequently means that the patient has little hope of functional recovery. The relative incidence of incomplete injuries compared to complete spinal cord injury has improved over the past half century, due mainly to the emphasis on faster and better initial care and stabilization of spinal cord injury patients. Most patients with incomplete injuries recover at least some function.


Determining the exact "level" of injury is critical in making accurate predictions about the specific parts of the body that may be affected by paralysis and loss of function. The level is assigned according to the location of the injury by the vertebra of the spinal column closest to the injury on the spinal cord.