@wil24 Susan, I'm sorry you didn't get the answers you were looking for. You might have what they call a double crush where you have the same nerve compressed in a few different places making it impossible to tell where the pain is coming from. The same nerve may be compressed at the spine and also in your wrist and both areas can be generating pain. Spine surgery causes a lot of inflammation, and perhaps this is why the doctor thinks surgery would make you worse. Was there any mention of surgery to address the carpal tunnel? It also gets confusing between carpal tunnel and thoracic outlet syndrome if you also have that. I had that situation in having carpal tunnel surgery on my wrist and it didn't solve the pain I had, and was later diagnosed with TOS. The hand surgeon completely missed that I had TOS and was irritated after I came back to him and told him after another doctor diagnosed it. He wouldn't help at all or authorize physical therapy. He actually was rude in my medical records calling me a malingerer, and it was he that missed the diagnosis and didn't understand the condition.

What he did at my surgical follow appointment was take my pulse in my wrist and tell me I was fine. Taking my pulse may have told him useful information if he had done it while my arm was raised and head turned because that cuts off the circulation in TOS. They can also listen in the neck and do the same things. That is pretty common with TOS patients to go years before getting a diagnosis. We had talked about TOS before you went for your appointments. Did they discuss or test you for TOS while you were there? If you had both TOS and carpal tunnel in addition to the spine issues, it would be very confusing indeed.

Did any of your doctors think addressing the carpal tunnel first would be a step toward removing it from the equation?

I still think you may get some benefit from myofascial release and you don't need a specific diagnosis to do that. You're in pain and that is enough to justify it. It can help carpal tunnel up to a point, but your condition may be too severe for that. Surgeons do look for what they call a differential diagnosis. That may be why they were focused more on your arm issues than your neck after the discovery. I'm sorry you are suffering as I know how hard that can be. There may be muscle spasms rotating your vertebrae in your neck, and a physical therapist doing myofascial release can help that by getting things back in line where they belong. It may improve your symptoms even though it doesn't solve the structural spine condition. That would be the same therapy to do for TOS anyway, and if you have TOS, it can help even without the official diagnosis. I had rotating vertebrae putting pressure on my spine issues which was causing my spinal canal to close down a bit and causing vertigo, gait disturbances, and difficulty emptying my bladder; when my PT straightened things out, my stenosis symptoms improved. That made it intermittent for awhile, and I also had no doubt what was causing them. A good PT can probably help direct the diagnosis if the doctors will listen to what the PT figures out.

I'm glad you are following up with your doctor tomorrow. Do you know where you want to go for a second or possible third opinion? If you have more questions or what to discuss anything, please let me know.

Jennifer

Jennifer