[miz-zou]

Hello all,

This is my first post to this site! What brought me here is a year and a half of ups and downs regarding my health. I'm just wanting some opions as it seems doctors are just not giving me the information I need.

I'm in the National Guard so I do not have to deal with military doctors, but rather have different insurance that allows me to see who I want. So this might help me in the long run.

It all started around August of 2011 when I started experiencing floating type feelings, dizziness, and muscle twitches in my left front neck and left chest. This would normally only be during exercise and would subside around 30 min afterwards. November rolls around and I am doing some combatives training where I tweak my neck quite badly. From this point I start having really bad headaches and the same dizziness feelings, floating, ect not just during exericise but at random times in different positions such as sitting in a car.

Fast forward to Jan 2012 and it gets so extreme I have to fall out during physcial training. I exeperience this same dizziness, short of breath, ect. At this point I'm also experiencing the headaches really badly as well.

At this point I go see the doctor and assuming the worst he sends me to the cardiologist where they do a number of tests that come back normal. Then he refers me to a nuero who within 5 mins says I'm having migranes and prescribes me migrane meds that do nothing.

One day in March I'm sitting in work and press on my left shoulder trigger point that has been hurting very badly. I feel this sharp pain that shoots up my neck into my head which is the muscle I strained when I tweaked my neck. I go back to the doctor and a MRI is done. I have very mild bulging at c5-c6-c7 and he has me start physical therapy on the neck. I noticed very little progress. From Jan until now my exericise has been at bare minimum.

Frustrated I try doing chiropratic care, with muscle stem and massage therapy. This helped the most but its temparory and they all notice my left shoulder winging badly. At this point my headaches are gone but I still get the neck, shoulder pain, dizziness, vertigo floating, and now pain has wrapped around to my serratos anterior and left chest wall badly. I have trouble breathing as my serratos anterior, chest, and neck muscles get VERY tight. I also have trouble swallowing in this neck region when the muscles tighten.

I go back to the doctor and he looks at my shoulder. He sends me to a sports doc and he has a MRI done with EMG. Both are normal so he thinks I have TOS. He has me start PT and I have been on it ever since. I have had zero progress and have been doing OT with it for 2 weeks now.

I still experience many of these issues and am very sick of them. I am and have been very active and am only 26. I commission to be an officer in May need answers asap!

Has anyone experienced these issues with TOS? Any help would be appreciated!

[Jomar]

[I have trouble breathing as my serratos anterior, chest, and neck muscles get VERY tight. I also have trouble swallowing in this neck region when the muscles tighten.]


This sounds like severe muscle spasms, is the PT /OT addressing those at all?
Strengthening or stretchy bands are not good during this time.

Does OT/PT seems to be very knowledgeable and asking you questions, assessing how you are responding, and adjusting plan if no improvements?
An advanced PT is very important and one not focusing on any strengthening until sx/pain are resolved.

What helped for me was manual trigger point work, ultrasound, low level laser, IF stim, my chiro used NIMMO which is like a mix of deep tissue, myofascial, trigger point.

Ask about top rib mobilization - that swallowing issue was because my top ribs had gotten stuck in a raised position and was closing the space between it and the collarbone even more.
My adv PT guy was the one to try the rib mob on me and it was a big improvement. Then I told the chiro about it and he adjusted it if it came up again. It would go up every so often at first so had to be dropped back down a few times but finally it stayed down.

I don't have any winging but others have posted about it, you can find those posts using the search link in my siggy.

Does your chiro do any c1 c2 adjustments? That might be something to try also, it is very gentle - you can see vids on youtube , some use lots of fancy equipment but mine used leg length testing.
info-
www.upcspine.com

[miz-zou]

Yea I'm glad you touched on that. The OT is now addressing the spasms by myofacial release. PT has had me doing various strengthing using bands. They also used ultrasound which would help for about a day or two.

I think they are knowledgeable but both are under the same assumption that I have nerve related issues. However when I see sports doctors and shoulder specialists they insist I keep with PT/OT when it really does not seem to help.

I have a high tolerance for pain. I played football in college and have been very active, way more than the average person. Iam to the point where it isn't the pain but the dizziness/vertigo/breathing that impacts by life and how I do things. At this point I have trouble with running 2 miles, let alone running 10+ which I used to do.

[Jomar]

Ask about stopping the stretchy band work, that id just causing the spasm-ed muscles to react and tighten more..
Hate to say it but they should know that...

If there are trigger points , those must be resolved before you can have any real progress.
We have a sticky thread on TrPs - that will help you understand more about them. Then you can check for them yourself or with a friend's help.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread125577.html

Then you will know more about it when talking to your therapist. If the PT won't change the treatment plan or acts offended by your questions, then they are not the one to give you the best help.
Sometimes they get stuck in a rut and only want to do the same old cookie cutter protocol..


The plan PT & DC used for me was heat, ultrasound, hands on work -TrP & myofascial release, IF stim & the LLLT for specific trouble spots.
no strengthening until pain/symptoms were down to avg of 1-2ish.

Also how is your overall/upper body posture?

Is head or shoulders forward of the mid line of the body?
That is important too.

[pdizziness, vertigo floating, ] -- could be the c1c2 / vertebral artery issues causing these.