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Anyone tried Dry Needling or Acupuncture for Pain or Neuropathy?
Neuropathy | Last Active: 5 hours ago | Replies (311)Comment receiving replies
Hi Jennifer,
I appreciate your response to my neck pain issue! You are wonderful to share your experience to try to help me.
I have seen a spinal surgeon, 2 years ago when I had the neck pain on the right side. He said I was a long way from needing any surgery. Then the pain disappeared. The recent MRI has not shown much change, but I do have multiple spinal issues. The headaches, thankfully, have subsided since I wrote that post a month ago. I still have some neck pain, but it’s not as bad as it was and I’m not having those head pains. I realize these could all return with a vengeance at any time, but I am hoping I have some time before I need surgery.
The main thing I have is narrowing of the facet joints I’m the cervical spine. This, along with arthritis and bone spurs is what is causing the pain.
I am scheduled to have some facet joint injections on Jan. 17th if I don’t chicken out before then and cancel. The doctor says she can only inject 1-2 ccs of medicine in those joints because they are so small in the cervical spine. It may work for a while, it may not help, and I realize it could potentially make things worse, thus my reluctance to start down this road. I decided to try it and see what happens.
Thank you for your input, I do appreciate it.
Replies to "Hi Jennifer, I appreciate your response to my neck pain issue! You are wonderful to share..."
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@jetsetter The facet joints are what allow the spine to twist as they glide past each other. I have a bit of facet joint arthritis that comes from the disc shrinking and putting more pressure on the facet joints. My C5/C6 had collapsed about 50% before I had spine surgery. Physical therapy can help a lot by maintaining proper spine alignment. Muscle spasms can pull the spine out of alignment and cause headaches. That happened to me and it would independently rotate a vertebra which then pulled on the muscle attachments. getting it back in alignment stopped the pain. A physical therapist is a good resource for that. It's good that you have a starting point with a spine specialist that you can follow up with if things change. Physical therapy might be able to buy you some time and prevent surgery for awhile. I'm glad your headaches got better.