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Excruciating chronic left side neck pain plus lumbar issues
Spine Health | Last Active: Nov 18, 2023 | Replies (360)Comment receiving replies
Hi Jennifer,
In the last week I have been feeling intermittent left jaw and throat pain.
Could this be related to my cervical nerves?
I have been feeling some left mild mid back pain recently.
Starting on the left of T1 vertebra I feel some mild pain going down for 12cm.
Can cervical pain radiate into your thoracic spine as well?
My last thoracic MRI from end of Jan shows this:
Findings:
The thoracic spine is sagittally aligned.
Multilevel loss of intervertebral disc space height and disc desiccation in keeping with moderate degenerative disc disease.
No thoracic vertebral body compression fracture appreciated.
Moderate multilevel facet joint arthrosis.
The spinal cord signal intensity and morphology is within normal limits
without evidence for syringohydromyelia.
There is multilevel posterior disc bulge with associated minor spinal
canal narrowing and indentation of the thecal sac anteriorly along with
mild multilevel, predominantly mid-lower thoracic neural foraminal
narrowing on background ligamentum flavum hypertrophy without
appreciable contact of the exiting spinal nerve roots evident.
SUMMARY:
The thoracic spine is sagittally aligned with spondylotic change
characterised by moderate multilevel degenerative disc disease along
with multilevel facet joint arthrosis.
There are minor posterior disc bulges predominantly in the mid-lower
thoracic spine associated with minor spinal canal narrowing seen with
bulging disc seen indenting the thecal sac anteriorly along with mild
neural foraminal narrowing on background ligamentum flavum
hypertrophy at a number of levels without contact-impingement of the
exiting thoracic spinal nerve roots appreciated.
The spinal cord demonstrates normal morphology and signal intensity
without evidence for syringohydromyelia.
Thank you
Alfred
Replies to "@jenatsky Hi Jennifer, In the last week I have been feeling intermittent left jaw and throat..."
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@ab6540183
Alfred,
Yes, you can feel throat pain from cervical spine problems, particularly around C3. I have experienced that when spasms have moved my cervical vertebrae around. I still do get spasms that affect my neck because of also having thoracic outlet syndrome, and that has also caused my jaw to be too tight and unbalanced which has caused facial and jaw pain and ear pain. These are things I have worked on a lot in physical therapy. Typically neck spasms from spine problems tend to straighten the normal (lordotic) curvature of the cervical spine. In my experience, keeping my curve in line keeps me out of pain, so when I do get spasms, I need to work on them to relax the tension and allow my neck to relax. That is where myofascial release really helps me. I do have to work on the tightness from the surgical scar now and then.
As far as pain radiating, that can be complicated as to what are all the reasons for it, and if there is also any compression of a nerve further down the pathway. Generally speaking, compression at a spinal nerve root follows a dermatome map of where that pain is felt on the surface of the body, so it is predictable. Pain generated by spinal cord compression inside the spinal canal could be anywhere and can change because of differing spine positions because the spinal cord has to move inside the spinal canal and that can change where a pain symptom happens or if it happens or not because of what part of the cord is in contact with something. When spinal cord compression has advanced more so that changing position does not reduce pressure on the spinal cord and there is no fluid space around the cord, it is harder to predict how pain will respond to body position or if changing position will help at all. You can have all of these scenarios going on at the same time making it difficult to find the exact cause of pain, but that is the task of neurologists and nerve testing as well as imaging.
Jennifer