Suggest treatment for neck, shoulder and arm pain while having cervical herniated disc
Patient: I have just suffered bulging discs in my cervical spine at the c5/6 and c6/7. Having lots of nerve pain through my neck, right shoulder and arm. Cannot sleep. Do you have any suggestions to help. I have just started taking neurotin in the last 24 hours. Not helping so far. Movement feels the best, but they have suggested not using my arm much. I use a manual wheelchair due to a 27 yr old spinal injury at the T12 area. So, need to use it some. Laying or sittjng still causes more shooting pain. I am looking to see if there is something I can do naturally to help me sleep and to lessen the pain. Thank you. Doctor: Hi,I had gone through your question and understand your concerns. In my opinion you may add some muscle relaxants and steroid intramuscular injections and some anticonvulsants that helps you sleep easier with lesser pain attacks. Neck exercises like extension, retraction, shoulder retraction, and isometric hold are highly suggestive in such cases. You may ask your neurosurgeon for further evaluation to recommend you the required dosing according to your condition.Sometimes a surgical solution is better especially after 6 months of treatment by physiotherapy and medications. Spinal surgeons can remove just the protruding portion of the disk. Rarely, however, the entire disk must be removed. In these cases, the vertebrae may need to be fused together with metal hardware to provide spinal stability. Rarely, your surgeon may suggest the implantation of an artificial disk. Please click on THANK YOU and consider a 5 star rating with some positive feedback if the information was helpful. Hope the above information helps you. Any further clarifications feel free to ask.Regards,Dr. Ahmed Aly Hassan