Question
I got neck and shulder pain for a couple of years. Recently, my left arm and fingers got numb from time to time, and it goes all the way to my thumb and index fingers. it would start from the top of my left arm and i can feel it goes through the fingers. i felt like i want to push the top of my left arm at that time to make me feel a little release from the heaviness and numbness it will be gone for like 10 seconds, not totaly gone though. can you advise what the problem it is and what i need to do to fix it? thanks a lot. Sharon

Answer
Sharon,

What you are describing is a very common scenario.  There are several explanations for your symptoms, and a good physical examination will help home-in on the most likely diagnosis.  The area of distribution of your numbness, in the thumb and index finger, is often from a radial nerve irritation, and sometimes from irritation of the #6 cervical nerve root.  The root exits your spinal canal and  emits a branch that resides in the radial nerve.  Given that you have neck pain, I would guess that you have mild cervical nerve root compression.  If so, this can be caused by a protruding disc in your neck, or from arthritic bone spurs that compromise the canal where the nerve comes out of your spine.  There are several other possibilities, including simple muscular tension or adhesion in the front of your neck that compresses the criss-cross of nerve branches that make up what's called the brachial plexus (this case would be deemed "thoracic outlet syndrome).   These two possibilities can be differentiated with a good hands-on physical examination by a muscluloskeletal specialist such as a chiropractor or physiatrist.  Depending on your age, overall health, and findings on physical examination, the need for xrays or MRI will be made.  If you have all of your muscle reflexes in the arms and no weakness to hands/fingers/biceps-triceps, and also if rare things like lung tumors and arterial blockage is ruled out, then you are safe to treat.  If so, you should undergo some manual therapy that includes skilled chiropractic joint manipulation.   You can find out more by going to www.fcer.org  or  www.americanchiro.org

I hope this was helpful.

Dr. G