Good morning,

I am a 37 yo female with severe pain in the right neck, shoulder, arm, hand and now fingers. A year ago i fell and dislocated my shoulder i went to the dr and complained of neck and shoulder pain. An MRI was originally done on shoulder and confirmed a very big SLAP tear i had bicep tendoisis surgery April 2013. I still have pain and it is getting worse the doctors arent very helpful and i truly do not feel that i was diagnosed correctly. I just received results from cervical MRI that was done 07/31/2013 -

C2-3 unremarkable leverl
C3-4 Broad based disc bulge and osteophytic sprurring without neural compression
C4-5 Broad based disc bulge and osteophytic sprurring without neural compression
C5-6 Invertebral disc degeneration, protrusion and annular fissure to the right of midline without neural compression
C6-7 Broad based disc bulge without neural compression

My doctors did not go over this with me i emailed the surgeon who performed the bicep surgery and she very rudely stated it was disc degeneration, my PCP replied it is disc herniation. I am scheduled to have a nerve conduction test Friday and do not know if any of it is related. I have a desk job that requires data entry about 6 hours throughout my day i can barely drive, cook, clean etc.. due to the pain. I dont know what to do.

It would have helped if the MRI tech would have stated if those bulges were mild, moderate, severe etc... but I suppose if mod/severe it would have said so..

I would request , if your ins requires it, a full assessment/evaluation by an advanced PT person. MDs very rarely do this...they don't have the time..

Often the PT will take the time (45-60 minutes) and do hands on positional testing that will help to narrow down the cause /location of pain/injury.
They usually can find out if it is spine based pain vs muscular/soft tissue pain.. Some quality PT may be the answer.. PT should be able to help with the bulging I would think.. but it could be something else that is causing your pain.. triggerpoints are very painful and refer pain to other locations..


[desk job that requires data entry about 6 hours ]

This also makes me wonder if it could be work related, posture, or some sort of repetitive strain or injury. You might want to read on our thoracic outlet syndrome forum (TOS) for short..
here is the useful sticky thread - a bit of a crash course on TOS/RSI post #1 - http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread84.html

If you can describe your pain/symptoms/locations we might be able to help connect some dots...

the pain is constant my neck is always sore and my fingers feel stuck and throb my forearm and elbow hurt all the time just a painful constant pain shoulder continues to click and i am unable to lift anything with right arm constant throbbing pain feel it deep inside my body. My hands go numb and have the pins and needle feeling but lately the index finger particularly hurts so bad. Dr has prescribed Nuerontin but i still feel horrible and shoulder doesnt feel any better after the surgery - now of which i do not feel was even necessary since i still have the SLAP tear. and the pain was most likely always related to my neck. Also suffer from bowel-bladder incontinence - I am scheduled to return to work on 9/16 but that was prior to the MRI and also I have the nerve test this Friday. I am unable to do my job period and I do not know what to do or is this severe enough to require surgery or just more PT

I agree with Jo*Mar, the report doesn't use the key words of "Mild" "Moderate" or "severe" That usually is the indicator on how best to proceed. You might want to give the doc a call and get some clarification. ginnie

AC, Your symptom's sound familiar and scary. Nerve Conduction test might give you some insight, but the test is very unreliable( It could be a Industrial injury from repetition at your job. My experience ONLY....I would be concerned about Ulna nerve damage.... I pray Not!! Blessings