Question
About 5 years ago, I had a very sharp pain in the center of my back, after time the pain went away, however, that area of my back became numb.  I didn't think much of it.  Now I am having pain and numbness in my right arm radiating into my right hand and fingers.  Could these be related?  should I be concerned about the numbness i have in my back?

Answer
Let's talk about numbness, then!  Numbness is by definition a lack of nerve impulses relaying information about the area in question.  This could be from direct pressure on the nerve, a reduction of the oxygen to the nerve, or damage to the nerve.

A great question is "EXACTLY WHERE ARE YOU NUMB?" because the nerves in our bodies follow (generally) regular pathways.  If your numbness follows any of these classic distributions, it can help pinpoint the nerve, and possibly the cause of your problem(s). There's also varying degrees of numbness, from total lack of feeling (anesthesia), pins and needles (paraesthesia) too much feeling (hypesthesis) and reduction in feeling (hypoesthesia).  Often, my patients can feel pressure, but not surfac light touch, or the other way around.  Then we know that only certain tracts of the spinal cord are being affected, leading to a diagnosis that involve the spine, such as a disc.

In the case of the hand, it could well be that there is a disc causing the problems.  A good reference is if you are numb in the thumb, forefinger and part of the "bird finger", that's c6, if it's mostly "the bird" that's c7, and if it's the last two fingers, that's c8.

The two numbnesses (numbi?)*sorry, anatomy humor is pretty thin* mostly likely are not related, but could have a common cause, for example disc issues at multiple levels.  

If you would like to get a more precise diagnosis, get back to me.   In the meantime, Google "dermatome" and see the distributions for yourself.

Hope this answers your question. Please feel free to follow up.

Dr. Peter Carr
Seattle, Washington
www.dynamicclinic.com