@bude Do you have the radiology report that goes with your MRI? That may give details about what can be seen. Degeneration could be something like arthritic bone growth that can close down spaces where nerves exit the spinal cord or it could be something compressing the spinal cord if a disc is collapsing. You need the details on the report to understand what conditions may be present. Sometimes pinched nerves do cause major muscle spasms. Because I get muscle tightness through my chest, I sometimes have a rib start to twist if it gets bad. Myofascial release does fix that by stretching everything, and a shifted rib is very painful. I also have a condition called thoracic outlet syndrome which makes one side of my chest and neck too tight. MFR and stretching helps that and tends to equalize both sides of my neck. Nerves exiting the spinal cord can be seen on MRIs. You could also have a pinched nerve somewhere else in the body. Neurologists do testing to find these pinched nerves because it slows down the speed of electric transmission in the nerve. They send a shock and measure how fast it goes between 2 points. Often a spine specialist sends patients to a neurologist that they like to work with for testing, so if you want to consult a spine specialist, you may want to see them first. If you are having nerve blocks, they must know something about which nerve is compressed and where it is. I always read my medical records so I understand. Often you can do that on a patient portal.