Hi all!...I was wondering if anyone could answer this for me.
I have a ruptured thorasic disc, plus bulging lumber discs. And recently my arms and hands are falling asleep, I am having an MRI done on the neck next to see if that is the cause of the problem. But when I saw a nerve DR. the other day he said my leg reflexes are hyper.
Can anyone tell me what causes this?...the DR. didn't say.:wave:

Hi and welcome to the board,

When I had nerve compression, my arm and hand would fall asleep as well. I had a C5-6 herniation. After surgery, that all went away.

Take care and I hope you find the answers that your looking for.

I am so sorry that you are having such troubles...

I also have been diagnosed with hyperreflexia in my upper and lower body...the neurosurgeon does not see the reason for it on the MRI's.... I just had a radiofrequency procedure last week..for facet arthritis...but, I am still experiencing intermittent numbness in my feet and toes.. I also have weakness in my arms.. (I previously had an ACDF at C 5/6...and did have arm & hand weakness from before that)... So for now we are treating the facet arthritis... I also have a couple of lateral herniations and bulges in my lumbar area, as well as a couple of small hernations & bulges in the cervical area. Supposedly..these are not the cause of my pain. The neurosurgeon feels that a lot of my symptoms are from compression...BUT, he can't see where...very curious. So for now, I kind of ignore it...and am dealing with the remaining pain from the newest precedure...which is getting a bit better as of today, or maybe because I changed my pain meds.!! I hope that the Dr. can see what is causing your problem when you have the MRI...

Hey, Tucsonlady...we have the cervical disc repaired!!! More and more in common... Once I had the ACDF the neck/arm/hand pain was soooo much better...but once I was off of the meds...then the back became more predominent...see what happens when you fall... Not a good thing...

Leslie

Hi Sage,

Falling? I thought that I was the only clutz around here..lol I had back problems first for many years then add 2 car accidents within 8 months. I kept telling my Pt, dr. and neuro about my arm, hand,neck and shoulder pain, but oh no, thats just muscle they'd say. Well after countless trigger point inj. and steroids, pain meds, pt, rest, ect they finally after 5 months ordered an x-ray, ha we all know what that showed... a little DDD.

Back to therapy, still having problems with the herniation in my back, then dr. finally says, maybe we should do a ct of the neck (I was like you think!) As it turns out, I was scheduled to have a fusion on L4-5 in the afternoon. That morning I went to dr. for results of neck. They informed me that I had a large herniation with severe cord compression.

So, later that day I was in pre-op waiting for fusion of my back, and low and behold, God intervenes, my blood work came back with my white count tto high. So, as they are re doing blood, I just happen to mention to my neuro what I found out earlier that day about my neck. Holy Cow, talk about an up roar, whew. The surgeon called my husband into the room and had him running across town to get the actual films, had the primary dr. faxing the report to the pre-op area. After an hour, he looked at the films and said, Well, your not having surgery today!! Your neck has to have a fusion tomorrow and showed us the films, it was totally black where C5-6 was.

So, the next day, I was having a fusion at C5-6, and then the day after that, I had the L4-5 fusion. I would never, ever want to go through that again. My surgeon was sooooo mad at my primary, for not letting him know asap about my neck. He said, had I taken you in there and placed you for the L4-5 fusion and not known about the severity of your neck, you would have came out paralyzed on one side.

Needless to say, I truly believe with all my heart, that God was watching out for me that day. He made my blood work a mess, just to give me time to talk to my surgeon.

All of my pain from the cervical issue, went away right after surgery. That was amazing.

Take care and sleep peaceful

WOW TUSCON!!! The LORD was indeed with you. Oh my goodness. I had no idea. You are so lucky.

ouch..so sorry that you had to endure the wonders of modern medicine....and the practice of it. Yup...only took them 1 1/2 years to figure out the neck...didn't show up on any test....mylogram or anything...just as a protrusion....not a BAD lateral herniation....and then the neur. told my dear husband...she must have been in a lot of pain.... If I had been awake, I probably would have jumped up and down on him... The lower back was also injured at the same time...so this is 4 1/2 years later....and of course the arthritis has set in...it does that when there has been an injury......going back to the radiofrequency message now....bad night.

Leslie

Sage,

It cracks me up when they finally realize somethings wrong and then their like you said, oh she must have been in pain. There have been times that I honestly felt like screaming at the top of my lungs to these dr.s, but they would have put me in a looney bin..lol

I'm sorry that you had a ruff night!! I hope that today will be a better one.

Diet,

Everyday when I see my elderly neighbor, I'm thankful. He had a stroke 20 yrs. ago, and is paralyzed on the left side. He still gets around pretty good, but he can't do the things that he loves to do.

He's one of my "friends" that I help, mowing, weeding, garbage (yuk), ect. So, when I think of "what could of happened" to me, I'm thankful and grateful.

I Hope you have a better day today. Can you spell "BEHAVE" or "TAKE IT EASY" lol I know, I'm no better.

Tuscon, no I can't. Today was cleaning day. :rolleyes:

there are actually a few different things that can cause or trigger hyperrelexia.mine was the result of motor nerve damage that is sending out constant nerve signals to my legs.i have a certain level of actual spasticity in them too.but i also have spinal cord damage as well from a surgery done on my cord.there are motor and sensory nerve fibers within the cord too just like the sets of motor and sensory nerves you have that come out of the actual cord itself(they have to start somewhere).i don't know just how severe your herniation actually is but if it is actually affecting your cord in any way,this could be the culprit too.but what you have going on is most definitely stemming from some level of nerve affectation at some level in your column(hyperreflexia is "usually" a motor nerve or nerve fiber issue).the thing about actual spinal cord damage is after a certain amount of time has passed,you cannot actually pick it up on any MRI.my actual cord itself shows absolutely NO actual damage on my MRI but i KNOW how much was actually damaged due to my surgery(it was actually cut into about 4-5mms in and a big glob of blood vessels actually removed from it).in alot of cases with SCI espescially,you have to go by the symptomology in order to make that Dx.it just does not always show itself.mine is just non existant except for a very tiny dot of a cavernoma that had to be left behind when they hit and lost two leg nerves and only one came back on the monitor.it was too risky at that point to continue so i have about ten percent of it still there.the only real indication that there was even a surgery that took place within my cord is the boney promeninces are gone from the three vertebrae they had to do the lami's on to get to my cord and the big ugly scar on my upper back and neck where they went in.but the cord,nothing.

one other biggie here is that not everything you really have going on in any area of the body will always show up on an MRI.this is the way it is with any actual scan.it is just not possible for every little fine detail to actually show itself on any film for alot of different reasons.when i was going to have this spinal cord surgery done,my NS stated "depending on what we find when we open you up" and i'm like well don't you already know what you will find based on that last MRI?that is when he told me about the actual real limitations of any body type scan.sooo,sometimes things just will not show til you are opened up on the table,you know what i mean?you could very well have things going on that are just not actually showing up on any scan.this is where your symptomology plays a huge part in your Dx.any good NS will track back your symptoms and take ALL of theminto account and not blow something off that could very well be an indicator of some sort of issue.the thing here is that not every specialist has that same level of expertise and overall knowledge of what evry single little symptom could possibly mean as far as what is actually going in within you.this is where experience and knowledge of your NS is really crucial.i was very very lucky when i needed this cavernoma out because i had one of the best NSs with over thirty years of working knowledge and experience working for me.atthat time,he was the head of neurosurgery and head teaching professor at the university of MN.he retired last year and now i am totally lost as seeing all the new ones,well they just cannot give me the answers i am used to getting from the man who knew it all.everyone else just pales in comparrison now.it sucks.

if you very strongly feel that based on your symptoms that this current doc is not getting you where you need to be,find another one who DOES have a much longer working history.try going to any teaching university hospital,they are just used to dealing with the more obscure types of neuro conditions since these places are alot of peoples kind of 'last resort" you know what i mean?something is actually causing this within you and you need to find out just what that generator actually is before really doing anything else.i saw three seperate NSs before i found the one who did my surgery,only because he was the only one who actually knew the most about my conditon anf the best plan of actuion.he was also the only one of the NSs who actually told me i even had bleeding going on in that cavernoma.no one told me what hemosiderin was or that i had actually bled once before i even had that very first MRI done,they didn't happen to mention that.i also had had another one that showed up on another MRI done after my hardware placement surgery that the NS who had done that surgery knew about but didn't bother to tell me.i found out about both bleeds when i saw the NS at the U of M.i WAS pissed.knowledge and experience are going to get you the answers you need,really.if this one cannot get you those answers,you need to move onto one who will.you DO deserve those answers and have the right to a second,or sometimes third opinion.i do wish you luck here.any really good experienced NS will actually take the time to listen to your symptoms and follow the clues back to the point of origin.please keep us posted,Marcia

Thanks to all of you!...My appt. for the Mri has been re- scheduled until tomorrow. I am at a total loss with all of this. I really know nothing about any of it. I see the nerve Dr. tomorrow too, for a nerve test?...again I have no idea what they do. I have been almost unable to get around today.. I was prescribed loratab 10 mg...lyrica and zanaflex..all of which I know nothing about..except I am so sleepy:yawn: lol. I was told by a specialist that operating on the thorasic spine was out of the question because of danger to the spinal cord. I have pain going from the top of my head through my toes. I feel like bees are stinging the thorasic spine...and now when I lay down my legs and feet fall asleep. also the pain goes around into my left side and this probably sounds strange but I can feel pain in my teeth I have to put pressure on them to try to relieve it. Has any one had any of these symptoms?..or am I losing it?:angel: