NeuroTalk Support Groups - brachial plexopathy lower trunk

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brachial plexopathy lower trunk

in january of 2007 i was diagnosed with carpal tunnel and severe cubital tunnel of the left arm. it started in my shoulder with really bad shoulder pain now its the entire arm.. my hand goes completely asleep. my chief complaint is my elbow the pain is sooooo severe i cant stand it. sometimes my elbow freezes up and its hard to use it. i also have pain from my bottom neck to my shoulder and pain, numbness and a strange sensation under my collarbone. i turned my claim into work comp but it took till october 2007 for it to be an accepted claim. i started with a treating primary dr in my area. his opinion was the elbow was so severe that there is no treatment available that would make a difference for me. he sent me to a nuerologist last week for additional testing, and 2nd opinion and additional treatment options. since it took a yr to start treatment and it had been a yr since the prior emg the neuro repeated it...... he found the elbow to be fine, how i dont know since it is my biggest complaint also he said i have carpal tunnel in both hands and i have brachial plexopathy.. after researching it online i see alot of comparisons of brachial plexopathy and tos. i have sooooo many of the symptoms of tos. the neuro didnt explain any of this to me just gave me my diagnosis told me to wear braces at night and rest my hands for a month. i dont know where to go next or what to do. i am however blessed to live in houston, i did see dr naths website, dr noon, and dr azi....does anyone have any advice? know the diff between tos and brachial plexopathy??????:confused:

Quote:

Originally Posted by littleladiee34 (Post 194409)

I live in the houston area. I saw Dr. Azizzadeh and had surgery for 1st rib resection and scalene muscle removed on Dec. 12th. Dr.
Azizzadeh is great and knows his stuff. He explained TOS very thoroughly and the surgery. He also sent me to a nuero that knew about TOS as my prior one diagnosed ulnar nerve and I almoswt had surgery on my elbow since most of my pain was there. after TOS surgery I have NO elbow symptoms..........good luck and hang in there.
Celi :hug:

LL- the way I understand it is that all TOS is Brachialplexopathy, but not all brachialplexopathy is TOS. Thats b/c the BP turns into all of the nerves over there. I think.
One other thing to look into is called "double crush." I thik that the best way to describe that is that you have 2 smaller impingements on the nerve that, independently of each other, aren't a problem, but together, they affect you.
Feel free to correct me! :D

It can sometimes be helpful to understand medical term roots to better understand medical language. For example, if you if you have an "itis" you have an inflammation. Tosilitis, inflammation of the tonsils. Tendonitis, inflammation of a tendon, etc. ... It doesn't explain the etiology, or cause, of the inflammation, but you do know it is inflamed. "Opathy" is a suffix which means disease. So a brachial plexopathy is a disease of the brachial plexus but is often defined as brachial plexus dysfunction. Again, it does not describe the etiology. TOS can be the cause of your brachial plexopathy and in consideration of your other symptoms (even the elbow business) as well as the fact that when you looked up TOS you felt you could relate to this dx, you should seriously consider looking for someone who specializes in TOS and get evaluated for it. Best wishes to you! :)

Waggydog

Quote:

Originally Posted by littleladiee34 (Post 194409)

Brachial plexapathy is TOS

It is the same thing, doctors correctly use the Term brachial plexapathy. ie) TOS. The brachial plexus, consist of the cervical enrve roots off the spine at level C5/6/7/8- T/1. They travel behind the collar bone, in front of the first rib (the Thoracic INLET outlet)
After they pass through the outlet into the arm the same nerve cell becomes the median, ulnar and radial neves that travel the three feet to the finger tips.

Anywhere along that path a sick nerve is compressed by a hinge/joint it can inflame with symptoms. As the elbow and wrist.

So what we call TOS the docs will refer to brachial plexapathy. Many or most doctos will never see a case in their career, understand it, know how to treat it, or really have the answeres we want.

A lot is affected by HOW you may have developed, as some get carpal tunnel from over use, positional, an injury as a fall or car accident or even an anomolie as large collar bone, short fibrous bands that support the head/neck to the collar bone, or extra or malformed first ribs that compress the brachial nerve bundle as it passes.
Then there is TRUE arterial TOS with blood clots, this needs a bypass operation and treatment. often there is weird anomolie of path the vein took through the scalense muscle of the neck and it needs to be re routed to not be squeezed by thoses muscles. That true tos is about 5% of the TOS cases. Most are vein/neuro compressions.

Just my memory from what doc Togut shared at out support meetings and the asking of tons of questions over the years.
Feel better,
Dianne

Welcome to the club LL !