Hello @lourdes27, welcome to Connect. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate to deal with. You are not alone. There are a lot of others here that I'm hoping can share their experience and what has helped them. There is a discussion on Connect that I think you might find helpful and offer some hope for a more normal life. You might want to read through it and meet others who are also struggling with pain.

> Groups > Neuropathy > Myofascial Release Therapy (MFR) for treating compression and pain
— https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/

@jenniferhunter, @lioness and @grandmar may be able to offer some suggestions. Which symptom is the hardest for you on a daily basis?

@lourdes27 I can empathize with your situation. The symptoms you are describing are very similar to my own prior to my spine surgery which was a fusion at C5/C6. I had spinal cord compression with a ruptured disc and bone spurs compressing my spinal cord, and it generated pain all over my body. I had surgery at Mayo that corrected all of that for me. I also have thoracic outlet syndrome which I had prior to spine surgery, and TOS does cause tingling in hands and compromised circulation to the arms and hands. My hands used to turn blue and cold.

It's good that you have followed up with your surgeon, but since you don't have an answer, you might want to consider another opinion with a spine specialist. It sounds like he feels he has done his job satisfactorily. I don't think he has an answer and he's not looking for issues outside of his procedure. I think his focus is his success... and not a possible failure on his part. I do know that surgical scar tissue creates tightness in the fascial tissue that can restrict movement and proper body alignment and cause a lot of pain. A lot of doctors don't consider that or understand the fascial system. Only in the last few years have they made a "new discovery" and called it the "Interstitium", but fascial work has been around for 40 years. You have had a few surgeries in the neck and chest and if all of that is tight, it will pull and put pressure on your neck. I had done a lot of myofascial release to treat my TOS (before my surgery) and also after in my rehab. I still go to physical therapy for TOS now. I can feel the fascia pull all the way from my neck and jaw, through my chest and hip, and all the way down to my ankle, and I can also feel when that tissue releases while my therapist is working on me.

Has any imaging been done on your thoracic and lumbar spine? What I do know about spinal cord compression is it can cause pain anywhere in the body below the level of compression. Mine was in my neck, and it generated pain in my legs and feet, and really all over my body. Hardware can become loose or dislodged and cause an immune response if you are sensitive to the materials. I was worried about that, and had a fusion without hardware. The only implant was a bone graft, and I stayed in a hard collar until it fused which was 4 months.

Other possibilities for the loss of strength in your hands could be a peripheral nerve entrapment problem like carpal tunnel. The nerve compressions anywhere along the path of the nerve can generate pain, and sometimes problems like this can be missed if they are just focused on the spine. A neurologist should be able to determine where nerves may possibly be compressed. I did have carpal tunnel syndrome and surgery for that, and they missed the TOS which had overlapping symptoms. I also developed a spine problem, so I had multiple places for nerve compressions complicating everything at the same time. That is really why I came to Mayo, because numerous doctors missed understanding the complete problems. Mayo does a good job of integrating multiple specialties into understanding the whole problem.

You might want to consult a physical therapist who does MFR work for an evaluation as well as a neurologist. Perhaps that can provide a direction. It may be that physical therapy and MFR can help a lot if this is due to fascial restrictions, and my hunch is that is a factor because of your surgical history. Fascial problems can cause misalignment of the spine or joints that can happen anywhere in the body. If it is something like sensitivity caused by an implant, there are treatments for that by doctors in the environmental or functional medical fields.

Here are some links and a discussion about MFR with a lot of information.

https://www.aaemonline.org/find.php
https://www.ehcd.com/implant-services/