I am going to preface this by saying that you should consider all kinds of things, and I say that based on my own very similar experience. My story would take forever to relate in detail, so I will give a short description.
My search for a solution started with a neck x-ray and MRI. Those revealed, without question, a number of problems, including fused neck vertebrae, spinal stenosis, and bone spurs interfering with the foramen (openings) through which nerves passed from the spinal cord. I was being treated by a spine specialist, and he did a nerve test in my arm to trace the problem. He said that the spinal issues were what was causing the pain in my arm and the numbness in my hand, especially in the thumb and forefinger. They had me go through months of physical therapy, telling me that spine surgery would be my ultimate solution when I was ready for it.
But I was having enough pain in my wrist and hand to think there might be another problem, and I went to a hand surgeon. He looked at the x-ray and MRI, but he seemed skeptical. After he saw the nerve test he said simply, "They got the wrong nerve. You have carpal tunnel syndrome." He gave me a cortisone shot in the carpal tunnel, and it gave me nearly full relief for almost a year--which was aout the maximum he said I could expect. Then he performed a surgical carpal tunnel release, and I was totally and completely cured of my symptoms. A couple years later, I started having symptoms in my other arm and hand, and I went through the same "cortisone shot first, surgery later" routine. I certainly still have the fused vertebrae and spinal stenosis, but they don't seem to be causing me any problems.
I later learned that the symptoms I had were very typical of carpal tunnel, which is the reason that the hand surgeon was immediately suspicious of the spine surgeon's diagnosis. A key symptom is numbness in the thumb, forefinger, middle finger, and the inside half of the ring finger. Those areas are served by the median nerve, which passes through the carpal tunnel and is affected by a narrowing of that opening. Another symptom was the fact that problems happened at night, and I could relieve them by dangling my arm off the side of the bed.
So the point of this post is that sometimes doctors can get fixated on a diagnosis and miss alternative possibilities. My spine doctor looked for a solution in the the obvious problems in my spine and evidently did not consider the possibility that something else could be going on.
My search for a solution started with a neck x-ray and MRI. Those revealed, without question, a number of problems, including fused neck vertebrae, spinal stenosis, and bone spurs interfering with the foramen (openings) through which nerves passed from the spinal cord. I was being treated by a spine specialist, and he did a nerve test in my arm to trace the problem. He said that the spinal issues were what was causing the pain in my arm and the numbness in my hand, especially in the thumb and forefinger. They had me go through months of physical therapy, telling me that spine surgery would be my ultimate solution when I was ready for it.
But I was having enough pain in my wrist and hand to think there might be another problem, and I went to a hand surgeon. He looked at the x-ray and MRI, but he seemed skeptical. After he saw the nerve test he said simply, "They got the wrong nerve. You have carpal tunnel syndrome." He gave me a cortisone shot in the carpal tunnel, and it gave me nearly full relief for almost a year--which was aout the maximum he said I could expect. Then he performed a surgical carpal tunnel release, and I was totally and completely cured of my symptoms. A couple years later, I started having symptoms in my other arm and hand, and I went through the same "cortisone shot first, surgery later" routine. I certainly still have the fused vertebrae and spinal stenosis, but they don't seem to be causing me any problems.
I later learned that the symptoms I had were very typical of carpal tunnel, which is the reason that the hand surgeon was immediately suspicious of the spine surgeon's diagnosis. A key symptom is numbness in the thumb, forefinger, middle finger, and the inside half of the ring finger. Those areas are served by the median nerve, which passes through the carpal tunnel and is affected by a narrowing of that opening. Another symptom was the fact that problems happened at night, and I could relieve them by dangling my arm off the side of the bed.
So the point of this post is that sometimes doctors can get fixated on a diagnosis and miss alternative possibilities. My spine doctor looked for a solution in the the obvious problems in my spine and evidently did not consider the possibility that something else could be going on.
