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Seeking Help for Son with Atrophy of Muscles and Strength in Hand and Arm

Posted By Cheryl (Bakersfield, California) on 09/10/2017

Atrophy of muscles and strength in left hand and arm

I hope you can help me. My youngest son is 43. In 2014 he had to have surgery where the doctor went through his throat to replace a disc at the third vertebrae to bring back feeling in both hands and arms. It was successful but about two months ago his left hand and arm became numb again and now his hand looks atrophied and pitiful like the muscles have shrunk and he lives with the pain but takes pain medicine to help him cope. He has a messed up obamacare insurance he pays 700.00 a month plus full price for seeing the doctor and buying his meds. He has seen more than one doctor for this and they are at a loss for what is going on with his left hand and arm. Please share what you believe might help him. It would be appreciated more than you know. Thanks to all who respond.

Replied by Art (California ) on 09/10/2017

In reply to Cheryl (Bakersfield, California), If your brother had the surgery where they ream out the hole in the disc to relieve pressure on the nerves that pass through that disc hole, it is common for that procedure to work initially, but fail about a year or more after the surgery. I went to a chiropractor for this and two of my sisters had the surgery. Both of their symptoms returned. One sister at 10 years, and the other sister at 1 year. Mine has not returned, at least not significantly. This is what the chiropractor did for me. First he put me on a tens machine regimen to try and block the pain signals because nerve pain is a beast! Next he used ultrasound on my neck and shoulder area to try and neutralize the nerve inflammation. He used deep tissue massage on my neck and shoulders. He did very little in the way of manipulating the spine, but he did do some. He used accupressure also.Lastly, he told me to use the soft ice packs that he supplied(two). He told me that most doctors will tell you to use a 20 minute on/ 20 minute off cycle with the ice packs, but he said that I should use the ice packs for as much as I could stand in order to try and reduce the nerve inflammation. I had been in bad pain for at least two months and had gone to two other chiropractors who had no idea what was wrong with me. The third chiropractor was the charm and it was like night and day compared to the other two chiropractors. He got the pain under control in three visits (one week) and he said as long as I paid attention to how I was feeling in my neck, shoulders, arms and hands, I would be able to use the ice packs to control this condition for the rest of my life. The chiropractor asked me how I would rate the pain when I first went to see him. He asked me what was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life and I said when I had smashed my thumb by accident with a hammer when I was swinging hard at a nail and the hammer slipped off of the nail head and hit my thumb. He said I could call that a 10 and he asked me what my then current pain was in comparison and I told him it was in the 7 area compared to the smashed thumb. With the smashed thumb my finger nail turned black and eventually fell off. It hurt so bad, I could feel pain in my other thumb when it happened! What the nerve pain felt like to me was as though there was a circular vise around my shoulder area and the very top of my arms. Pain killers did not touch the nerve pain. The vise feeling felt like sometimes it would tighten and it felt like my arms were being choked. I had pain from my neck that traveled down both arms into my hands. My arm and hand and finger muscles atrophied and when I would reach into my pants pockets to pull something out, my hands would either come out empty or as soon as I pulled it out of the pocket I would drop whatever was in my hand. I frequently would drop things from my hands because the muscles were so atrophied. Although he got the pain controlled relatively fast, it took over a year to finally get rid of the numbness in my hands and fingers and to regain the strength in my hands arms and fingers. I'm sure I could have recovered much faster had I done specific hand and arm exercises once the pain was gone. To this day, whenever I get "that feeling", I start with the ice packs and it is usually gone in a day or two. The chiropractor told me that doing anything with my arms over my head would likely tend to aggravate this condition and on that point he was 100% correct, because on the few occassions since that first one when I start to get "that feeling" it is because I have done something where it required using my hands above my head for an extended period of time. Ice packs are highly antiinflammatory.....even for nerve pain and that is the only thing I use now for "that feeling"! A big word of caution, ALWAYS USE A TOWEL BETWEEN YOU AND THE ICE PACKS TO PREVENT ICE BURNS OR FROSTBITE! Ask your doctor to advise you on this to be sure. I hope your son is able to get some help from this! A good chiropractor should be able to help him and I think the combination of a tens unit regimen, ultrasound treatment, deep tissue massage, accupressure and icing are a highly potent combinatioin! Keep us posted, Cheryl! Art

Replied by Mmsg (Somewhere, Europe) on 09/11/2017

Cheryl, the first thing that you might try is Epsom Salts soaks for that arm.

Replied by Charity (Faithville, Usa) on 09/10/2017

I watch a lot of John Bergman videos on you tube and he teaches everything you could know on the disc in the spine and you might get help by watching him. He works in huntington beach calif. Hope you find answers. I love his teaching and learned so much about my spinal pain.

Replied by Deirdre (Los Angeles) on 09/11/2017

Dear Cheryl,

I am so sorry to hear about your son's injury. I can relate because I had a shoulder injury from one particularly rough training at our dojo about a year and a half ago and had extreme pain and muscle atrophy like your son in one arm. It started to reach my hand too. It took a long time to heal. Months went by and it was never properly diagnosed by doctors or chiropractors. I finally was able to make the diagnosis of brachial plexus injury after I did extensive research online.

Here is my own list my do's and don'ts for healing from this injury:

1. Don't EVER let a chiropractor adjust you when lying on your stomach. I had chiropractors in both GA and CA adjust my back and ribs when I was laying on my stomach and this aggravated my pain and I think injured me more.

2. Vibrating machines and other tools used by chiropractors to the shoulder blade/point of injury felt great but made the pain much worse a few hours later.

3. Stretching the arm by pulling it across the body to relieve the pain only made the pain worse.

2. OTC pain relievers like Advil, Aspirin did nothing to help the pain. I never took or was prescribed any prescription pain meds, thankfully. I just lived with the pain.

3. No supplements helped. And I tried everything, one by one, month after month. That part was very frustrating! Turmeric, magnesium oil, epsom salts soaks, omega 3 oils, etc. etc. Nothing helped. Fish oil made the pain worse, interestingly.

3. Hot showers alleviated the pain for about 1 hour.

4. Sleeping with a heating pad on the lowest setting under my injured shoulder blade was the only way I could sleep. I used an infrared heating pad.

5. Stopping any torquing motion in the bad arm and shoulder that might aggravate the condition. In my case, walking the dogs was exacerbating my condition because my bad shoulder kept getting pulled back by one of my dogs who was stopping short to sniff and to say hello to folks on the street! I am quite sure this repetitive stress to the shoulder made my injury much worse. I switched to a waist leash once I figured it out and that stopped the progression of pain down my arm.

What finally healed after 8 months of extraordinary pain was:

1. First going to an osteopath who adjusted my shoulder and ribs while I was laying on my back. Started to get relief after the first session. I went back for 2 more.

2. Then seeing a myofascial therapist (John Barnes method) who slowly stretched me. She got rid of all of my remaining pain in 1 session. The pain went away a day later for good. It was the most amazing feeling ever!

3. It took another 6 months of weight training before I regained all my strength back in the arm.

From what I understand, nerves regrow slowly, at the rate of 1mm per day! So it takes time and patience to recover. But the good news is that people do heal and regain their muscle strength. I know of one other person who had the same injury as myself. He was able to recover in only about 3 months!

Please update us and let us know how your son is doing. Many blessings to you both.

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