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Anyone have Radiation-Induced Brachial Plexus Neuropathy?
Head & Neck Cancer | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (20)Comment receiving replies
Hi. I'm wondering if the Brachial Plexus and Cervical Spine MRI's showed anything.
I was diagnosed and treated (Right Tonsil) in 2008.
In the last 6-7 months I've started having difficulty sleeping due to what I think is due to Brachial Plexus caused neuropathy. Some nights one arm acts up, other nights the other and then some nights both.
My ENT suggested a visit to the physical therapy group. Haven't done that yet.
Any feedback is appreciated
Replies to "@omaest Hi. I'm wondering if the Brachial Plexus and Cervical Spine MRI's showed anything. I was..."
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@jcl2018 Sorry to hear about your issues with sleeping. Hopefully that’s as bad as it gets. My situation sounds unfortunately similar to yours. My throat cancer treatments were completed I believe in 2008 as well and everything appeared to be going wonderfully until about 5 years ago when I was loosing mobility in my left arm. I was encouraged to go to physical therapy where I religiously did my exercises but saw no improvement. Then I went to Orthopedic who said, try these Cortisone shots. Did that, nothing got better. Finally Orthopedic ordered several MRI’s and their analysis was that I should go to Physical Therapy. When I protested that the previous inability of PT to help is what brought me to them, they sent me to a Neurologist. The neurological team poked and shocked me for over 4 hours, ordered more scans and then pretty much agreed that I probably have nerve damage from the 35 radiation treatments. Even my Oncologist has advised, “yeah we gave it to you pretty good” but was surprised that this was occurring so far out from the radiation treatments.
Since then, I’ve done some Occupational therapy, been seen by a Neurology Surgery, and currently receiving some Acupuncture treatments. The Occupational Therapist and Surgeon have no positive options to offer at this point.
I don’t offer my story as a negative, heck I’m happy to be alive and pretty functional but would advise you to see a Neurologist or two to determine if you do indeed have the Nerve Damage. I wasted at least 3 years of people telling me I had “frozen shoulder and we can fix this” and all the associated Physical therapy that did nothing. I hope you do have frozen shoulder, that’s pretty fixable.
As of today I’m still looking for a solution to improving the functionality of my left but not encouraged by the medical professionals I’ve seen. The positive is that my left arm doesn’t appear to be getting worse and my right arm is still pretty normal. If it stays that way, I can live with it. If you stumble into some magical solution, I believe most of us in this group would love you to share. I wish you continued improvement