Desperately confused - please help!
 

Hi All
I would really love some advice...I was beginning think I'd got to the bottom of my symptoms when my neck mri came back showing 3 bulging discs therefore cervical radiculopathy. However, I'm now not sure this is actually causing my symptoms. 90% of my pain and pins and needles are in my RIGHT hand, arm, shoulder and SCM/scalene area, but the mri showed bulging was worse on the LEFT. Also according to the mri the worst bulge is C5-6 but my worst p+n are in my little and ring finger and on the ulnar side of my forearm, so not the C6 nerve root dermatome.

I've read that bulging discs are common in many people who don't have any pain, so is it possible that cervical radiculopathy is not my problem at all, but that it is in fact tos as I long suspected?

I've been referred to a general neurologist on the NHS (I'm in London) in a month's time, but I'm getting increasingly desperate and unable to cope with the pain.

Any advice about differentiating between radiculopathy and tos would be greatly appreciated! Many many thanks, Kathryn

Have you had a comprehensive evaluation by an advanced physical therapist?
Also an expert chiropractor should do this same type of eval if you went in for these problems. just ask for an assessment/evaluation only...if you don't want any treatment at this time.
it would be good to take the MRI films or at least the report for the person to read before doing any testing.

The most thorough evaluations I had were by advanced PT persons (3 different ones), and my chiro, NO doctors I went to ever did the hands on/ in depth full assessment.

Basically a capable therapist can do certain tests with positions / pressure/ stretching to find out if the vertebra or c spine is actually causing the sx and to what degree.

Finding a highly skilled/advanced person that has more rounded knowledge overall will save you time and energy vs going to ones that may not be as knowledgeable.

a few videos to show evaluations for cervical & TOS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHQHrjMlOEU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVvO...eature=related