New To This Board - Need Your Help

[Moldova]

Hello everyone! I hope it will be a better day for you all tomorrow...

I have a question to you and thank you in advance for your posts.

I had 2 spinal lumbar fusions in '06 and '07. I developed upper spine -neck pain. But the worse part the pain spreads to my shoulders, arms and hands. Pins and needles affect only ring and pinky fingers. Pain wakes me up at night many times, I don't know what to do with my arms and hands. My worse position is laying down; something prevents me from be in bed b/s pain is unbelivable.
Now i see my right hand is weaker than left one; hard to hold even a cup with one hand because of weakness and pain.
I want to ask you if someone can relate to what I am going through and let me know what this can be.
I had cervical MRI done, I have some bulges, herniation at C-6, protrusions, DDD and of course stenosis (Comes with territory, I am 52).

Best wishes to you all!

[elle45]

Hi moldova,
Sorry to hear about your pain, but you are not alone. Yes I can relate to everything you are going through. I had a posterior lominectomy 3 weeks ago for a disc extrusion between c6-c7. I did not get a fusion.
The only way I got any relief from shoulder, arm and hand pain was to put my arm over my head, while driving I had to put my right arm on the back of the passenger seat. Sleeping I could only use 1 pillow under my head, but I did use another between my body and my arm to help keep my arm out on an angle. Never sleep on your stomach because it causes you to twist your neck too much(as per my Dr. orders) it was also very uncomfortable to sleep on my side. When the pain got too bad I did have to take something to help me sleep.
Since having surgery I am doing pretty good. The pain I was experiencing before is all gone, just a few post-op aches and pains, and crazy side effects. You can find a few other posts that I have written to get some more answers to your questions. Other people will reply too, sometimes it just takes a few days.

Good Luck
elle45

P.S. Before surgery I tried all conservative treatments including chiropractor, PT, ultrasound, and cortisone shots (never again). None of these things helped "ME" at all.

[skych]

Hi Moldova,

Chrissy from the PM forum.

I to have issues in my neck and I really can get some bad burning in-between my shoulder blades. I also get funny numb spots on my left arm. Sometimes it is as if someone put a BP cuff on my arm but there is not one there, it is just numb..weird. I also have the numness and tingling in my left ring and pinky finger and some of my palm.
The numness and tingling in my ring and pinky finger is a combination of the neck issue and from the all the surgery I had on that left wrist and arm.
I am pretty sure that when you have numb and tingly in only the ring and pinky fingers it stems from the Ulnar nerve. That nerve does go all the up into the neck.
So for me there is a possiblity of crossover in injury there but sometimes the palm and fingers flare up and they burn really bad. I also drop things with my left hand. Just this morning I almost droped the quart of milk.
I am sorry to hear how much pain your having. I know this has been a tough road for you. I am not sure if you remember me from the PM forum or not, but I know some parts of what has been going on with you.
Please hang in there. We are all here to support you!

Chrissy

[Moldova]

Chrissy, I sure remember you; I always respond to your posts.
Thank you so much for your respond, I really appreciate it. So what did your DR tell you about your problem? Are they able to point out to you what is your problem and how to fix it? I can imagine how scared are you without knowing what is going on. I like my questions answered... so everybody else too.

Elle, thank you for your respond. I feel that what you are having my problem too, because you explain it so well and so detailed and I feel i have same thing. I find relieve in same position you do. I can't lay on my stomach, I can't lay in bed period. Any position is killing me. I am talking about severe pain. I had 2 lumbar fusions from L-3, L-4, L-5 S-1. I take LA Oxy, BT Oxy, Ambien to be able to sleep and still wake up all night long from pain in my arms and hands. Even helps my back and damaged nerves in my legs, but not upper back/neck and arms/hands.

I hardly can do anything because of this pain and my hands are very weak: i loose control of things in my hands.

I will definitely insist to see my surgeon again. I hate to think about another surgery, but i am glad you are doing so well and maybe i will have same luck?

Thank you both for your kindness
Hugs and Blessings to you

[SpineAZ]

I've been down the lumbar road and am now still headed down the cervical board. Most of your symptoms that you describe are very closely related to what I experienced before my ACDF. I never had the numbness issue prior to my lumbar surgery so the numbness and pins/needles sensation was all new to me when it started in my neck/left arm. My ACDF was mostly successful but I have to have a revision of sorts this week (a posterior cervical foraminotomy) to open the narrowing where the nerve is.