this mans story
Quote:
Hi,
I could give the same details as nearly everyone here. I'm just gone 36, male, no previous illnesses. I exercise regularly although not as frequently in the last 18 months. I recently kick started exercise again which was focusing on upper body and cardio. Over a two week period I was doing a *lot* of physical labour (building renovations) and had cut out my nromal exercise when I got some pains in my lower back. I also got a sore throat which only seemed to affect me a bit mornings and evenings and during the night. Didn't notice it at all during the day. Renovations complete and exercise on hold, I left it two weeks before attending a physio for my back. On a Monday I went and got some trigger point techniques and dry needling to fix 'chemical build up in the muscles in lower back and glute' but there was no muscle damage / strain. This worked and after a session on each side I was almost instantly fine.
The following Saturday night I was watching a movie around midnight and as I was getting up felt a discomfort / dull ache in the tips of both shoulders (deltoids I think). This continued to get a little worse and by 1:30am I was in a lot of discomfort. I went to bed but woke after 15 mins with pain getting worse. From 1:30am to 4:30am it went from an ache to EXTREME agony. I couldn't believe that it could be getting this bad with no physical injury. At 5:30 we dashed to the nearest hospital and even slight movement going round a bend in the car was unbelievably sore as nearly all muscles pull on the shoulder muscles.
The pain: I was experiencing extreme pain and supersensitivity in my shoulder tips (medial deltoids perhaps?) and in my arm pits. Outside felt like they had 50 needles pushing into them, under arm was like an electric shock if I moved my arm. I had some movement in my left arm. I had bearly any movement in my right arm and due to the absolute extreme pain I wouldn't have moved it even if I could.
At 8am the hospital finally gave me some pain killers. I'm alergic to NSAIDs so got a 30mg codine / 500mg pill x 2, over the next half hour the pain decreased but was still unbearable. From then until 3 in the afternoon 3 different doctors puzzled over the symptoms but no ideas. Eventually by 3pm with the help of pain killers and totally exhaused I asked to go home. The pain had decreased a lot in my left shoulder and my right had gone part numb. It was still really bad but I wasn't getting anywhere in the hospital. The pain killers worked well. 2 of them 4 times in 24 hours reduced it considerably. I went to my local doctor as suggested by the hospital but he was new and not very helpful. 1 week later I was sitting with my arms on the arm rests watching a movie when I realised that I'd had my first pain free few moments in a week. I pushed at my doctor over the next week to get something done but because my symptoms were subsiding I think he just wanted me to go away. I'd had lots of blood tests which had all come back normal (apart from liver ALT initially very high 179 but over a few days came back down to 77, probably kept high by the paracetamol). 4 weeks later eventually got to see a 'Consultant Physician' who 30 seconds after I started talking was smiling. He let me talk for 5 minutes. Did a couple of mobility tests and said it's Brachial Neuritis. I felt relieved that it now had a name. I googled it when I got home and the first page that came up ( http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/315811-overview ) was word perfect for what I'd experienced.
By the time I had gone to the physician I had self diagnosed myself off the stronger painkillers and was on Solpadine (1mg codine and 500mg paracetamol). I was also pushing myself to my limits trying to test what was sore so as I could describe it well. I had gone back to my physiotherapyst out of desparation during the for weeks and got her to do some dry needling on my supra/infra and deltoids and it gave me great relief. I really recommend it to anyone who gets this but can't get pain relief. She dry needled and twitched the muscles which hurt like hell but was much better even a few hours later. It's now about 8 weeks since it happened and I have almost full movement back in my arms (left arm much better than right but it had hurt less right from the start). They still hurt and ache but not even 5% as much as the initial night. I'm glad to say that within 1 week of it happening I was 50% better. The other 50% is a longer journey. Still I think I'm getting there quickly. It was week 3 before any weekness / strength loss occured but I don't have any serious muscle depletion. I've lost some power in my right hand even after some work on my forearm it's not shown any signs of come back. If I throw a ball it feels like I've had an electric shock under my arm. When I'm washing my arm in the shower I'm reminded that the tricep area has very little feeling / sensation.
But I'm back for physio tomorrow and starting some exercise right after that. I seem to be one of the luck 90% going from extreme pain to almost healed in 8 weeks with only some loss of power in one arm and a few aches and pains occasionally (which can make me a bit queasy if that happens anyone else?). It feels good to be able to pick up my son again. Good luck to anyone else reading this. I'm convinced physio trigger pointing and dry needling from early on speeded my recovery. Ask your doctor if you can give it a go. And then it's exercise all the way!
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from
http://forums.wrongdiagnosis.com/sho...d.php?p=251990
parts of it sound like what ive experienced/tos. its confusing how all of this stuff overlaps