[QUOTE=Jo*mar;508557]Hello,

I had some thoughts on some of your symptoms.

You mentioned a car accident and your hands and elbows swelling, and neck injury at c5-c7.

I assume the accident caused some upper body injuries as well as maybe some soft tissue injuries.

I'm wondering if the swelling in the arms and hands might be due to some vascular issues /compressions at the brachial plexus? {collar bone, top rib, scalene neck muscles}

We have a Thoracic Outlet Syndrome forum that includes this type of vascular problem. You may want to read to see if anything more sounds like it may apply for you. Car accidents/whiplash etc can be a factor in the cause of TOS.


I have read a few things including the other forums that you provided the links to, thank you for the links. I did suffer a significant whiplash and the ER Physician gave me some medications for pain and also muscle relaxants because during the accident we hit a guard rail three or four times, spun in between 360 degrees and the final time that we hit the guard rail the trunk was hit, the other times the front of the car was hit at approx. 75 mph. When we hit on the trunk, the car went airborne and came back down to the pavement. It never left the ground on the rear of the car, only the front. We hit hard enough though that the witnesses said that the car had no other place to go but up because it hit against the guard rail again. This accident took place in the center divider of the freeway and we never hit another car but we had head, neck, and chest injuries. We also both had shoulder injuries from hitting the doors as the car was spinning. The airbags deployed so we got chest injuries from the airbags, but thank God for the airbags! I had marks on my chest for three years from the imprint of the airbag where it hit on my chest when it exploded. We both also had bumps on our heads that are unexplained but we think that we bumped our heads together when the car was spinning so many times. My daughter told me that she looked over at one point and my eyes were closed and she wasn't sure if I was closing them because I was afraid or I got knocked out because I didn't answer her when she called for me. My seat got flattened during the accident, I think from the force of the accident and the airbag combined.
We're both just very blessed to be alive and I thank God that we're here. If I have TOS I can at least bring this to my Neuro and ask him if he thinks this is a possibility. I am under the care of a Neuro and he's also my pain management. He just performed nerve conduction testing on me again and said that he thinks the pain is coming from my neck but he isn't sure what is causing the swelling. I haven't gotten an answer from him yet and I keep pressing for one. My Family Practitioner is the one who put me on the Prednisone because I couldn't get a response from my Neuro and I have been losing so much sleep. I sought help from her in the meantime because it became unbearable.