Hey everyone

I'm hoping to find someone who shares my similar symptoms...especially someone with a happy ending.

My name is Kristen and I'm a stay at home mom to 3 kids, I don't do anything repetitive, never had an accident or injury. I have had 3 c-sections and my kids are 7, almost 5 and one an a half. I'm 30

Over a year ago I noticed a slight pain in my wrist, especially when I pressed down on something. I hoped it would go away and didn't think much of it. A few months later and it didn't go away and in fact now the top of my hand and side of my thumb was hurting. I went to see my family dr who sent me for an xray. She didn't see anything but decided to treat me as a sprain, put me on a 7 day pack of steriods and told me if it didn't get better that she would refer me to a bone and joint dr. It didn't get better so I went to see him. He x-rayed it as well, put it in a splint for 6 weeks. During that time, I started feeling some numbness, mostly in my thumb and bottom of my wrist. Since it didn't get better with the splint, the bone dr sent me to have a nerve study done. Days leading up to the nerve study, my symptoms disappeared. Even on the day, I tried to get something to flare up so I even tried doing push ups (something that was very painful before) and nothing. I had the study done and it came back there was no damage in my nerves. Since my symptoms went away, I thought everything was finally healed and fine. Then a month later everything came back and this time I had pain all the way up my arm, almost to my shoulder. I went back tot he bone dr and he sent me to have an mri. They looked at my mri and said it "didn't look too bad" but decided I may have some arthritis in my cervical spine. Sent me to PT for 6 weeks along with a daily nsaid. During the PT, they mostly focused on traction. I did this for an entire month and my symptoms got worse. My grip was nearly gone, the numbness was so intense and the pain was awful. My husband travels a lot for work and I remember laying in bed one night while he was in another country, crying that I was going to have to drag all my kids into the ER. I went back in to see the bone dr and was a hysterical mess. They said they had no idea and gave me a referral to a spine dr. I called my family dr and cried to her on the phone and she ended up giving me a pain killer and a nerve pain killer. I was pretty emotional as the numbness and pain never goes away and now it was in my shoulder and I even felt something strange going up the side of my neck and every once in awhile in that side of my face. I did notice the numbness in my fingers were mostly on my 2 outer fingers and then also the fleshy part of my thumb.

I went to see the spine dr who told me my mri was perfect and there was no arthritis or bulges in my neck. He read my the symptoms to thoracic outlet syndrome and referred me to a PT that actually dealt with several patients that had tos. I've been going for 3 weeks now. I have NO idea if it's working. Some days I think it is but then I have days like today where it's just as bad as ever.

I do my stretches every day, I've been really trying to not pick up the baby with my left arm (though it's very difficult) as well as not lay on that side. I'm trying to have great posture throughout the day as well. At the first day of this diagnosis, I was pretty optimistic but as the weeks go on, I'm feeling down again. I feel like this is going to be my new normal, this is my life now and it stinks!! I'm still fairly young, my kids are young. I don't know why this happened, why nothing seems to be working? It's affecting my life in all areas and I'm feeling really...defeated.

I'm open to any advice, stories, avenues I haven't taken...anything. Thank you for reading

Hi, welcome to NT

So sorry you're having so much pain in your life.

It won't always be this way. Pain patterns do change.

Right now, I would suggest you start a dairy, date, time, names, numbers so you can have it all in one place. Make notes, as you can, of your symptoms, pain, activities, sleep pattern, what you are taking, including over the counter and vitamins/supplements. Sometimes foods, caffeine can effect your condition, so list them too. A good place to put appointments and reminders.

There's lots of info here, so take your time and look around all the forums.

Keep in touch...

I really feel for you, especially because picking up the toddler isn't easy and isn't something you can NOT do. I have a five year old and thank goodness, she doesn't require picking up anymore.

Please be wary of not creating a bilateral situation since you could be favoring your good side. I don't have any advice for you other than try to not do do everything one handed and/or modify how you do things. I'm bilateral and it's no fun trying to choose which arm gets to take a beating. How is your head posture, is it forward or tilted up and back? Try to lengthen your neck by imagining a string is attached at the crown of your head and you are pulling it up. I know, this is silly but it's a good visual that I learned through the Alexander Technique (Google it for more info).

Is the numbness and pain constant or does it come and go? If it's intermittent, try to document when it occurs and/or what triggers it. Is your PT also doing massage of your pecs (minor and major)? If not, ask them about it because a lot of TOSers have pec issues as well.

You've definitely come to the right place, there's a lot of info on these boards. Good luck.

Welcome aboard!

Oh thank you SO much for replying. really it means so much!

my pain gets worse at night. and the past 2 days it has been unbearable. the first night was a pt day, and it usually is a bit worse on those days but yesterday was just unreal. if i didn't have pain killers, i would have been in the er. tonight it's almost just as bad. but the weird thing is on both nights i'm having pain up in my neck (nearly to my ear) and in the back of my head??? and then in my shoulder, the top of my arm, forearm and wrist (and a tiny bit in the fleshy part of my thumb) and numbness in my last 2 fingers, the fleshy part of my thumb, and the top of my arm on the outside part of it, about an inch-2 down from my shoulder. and i swear i feel a bit of numbness up my neck and by my jaw. i don't know if it's all the same thing. i don't know anything anymore other than it's affecting everything. i feel like an awful mom, wife and me.

yes the pt does do some sort of a pec massage. and they press up and down right by first rib. i'm there for an hour and a half twice a week.

If you are having that negative a reaction, the PT may be doing too much or working too hard. In my experience, PT that caused too much pain never did me any good, in fact it made me worse. Overdoing PT following surgery was one of the contributing factors in forming scar tissue. That scar tissue has been debilitating for 6 years now.

Usually the PT will want to know how you're reacting and can alter course accordingly.

Good luck.