Pain on upper chest and mid back

Please do not see a chiropractor. They will make it worse. These are not even licensed MDs.

aladow, your caution is well taken. Though chiropractors are not MDs, I respect their profession. What really advantages us is the assessment. Chiropractors have a niche of understanding of whole body mechanics, which can be missing in the division of specialities. An examination by a chiropractor can't make anything better or worse. It may give better understanding of a condition.

The crucial information that no one really knows is when you have a bulging disc, how weak is it? That question is answered when a disc herniated and spills the jelly like contents out of the nucleus. Once that happens, it spreads inflammation that triggers bone growth as the body’s attempt to stabilize the spine and this creates bone spurs. Bone growth is also triggered y uneven pressure on the end plates of the vertebrae. A bulging disc may have some uneven pressure too. It’s like when you sit on a large inflatated therapy ball and tilt you weight in a particular direction. I know when my C5/C6 disc ruptured and all I did to trigger the rupture was turn my head when I was stretching my neck. I heard it pop and my head turned past the prior range of motion. I felt a weird queasy sensation, and it was not painful. From that point forward, bone spurs started growing next to the ruptured disc and it eventually pressed into my spinal cord. If a chiropractor had adjusted my neck, I think my disc would have ruptured my sooner.

@gently Chiropractors are the equivalent to snake oil salesmen in medicine. They have no niche. I'm sure a neurosurgeon and physical therapist or way more educated and practiced in the care for patients with disk issues. Any examination of a chiropractor is simply not worth the time. It would be an unnecessary cost and they could actually make things a worse. If I would have had an adjustment by a chiropractor they could have crippled me.

Jennifer, your personal story is fascinating and your skills at depicting your physican in oil impressive.
A chiropractor would have never have given you a thrust adjustment. May have offered traction. And (as actually happened) might have advised you to see a minimally invasive surgeon, maybe for nucleoplasty.
Lots of things happened to your disc before it buldged, and more before it ruptured. A good assessment would have kept you off the therapy ball and on movements that stablize the neck.
Knowlege is crucial for prevention.

@gently Thanks for your comments, but to be more accurate the painting was done in watercolor, and because the disc ruptured into the central canal which is where the bone spurs grew, there was no way to get to that surgically except for going through the bad disc. I know there are surgical procedures that trim extruded disc material, but the rupture needs to be accessible without destroying the disc such as rupturing into the foramen. I guess there is also laminectomy, but that would leave the bone spurs in place which were on the front on the spinal cord like a knife edge and bending my neck forward across them was causing an electric shock. You can't go through the spinal cord from the back to get to the bone spurs or ruptured nucleus. There is also the aging factor and a damaged disc that has small cracks in it from an injury dries out in time as all discs do, and these cracks can open up weakening the fibrous outer layers. The description of sitting on a ball was just to describe how pressure can change when weight is not centered. I wasn't doing that for therapy. It was just to illustrate how the pressure on the end plate of a vertebral bone isn't distributed equally if a disc is bulging. The disc bulge can also rub when you turn your head and I used to hear that in my neck before the rupture. By the time I had surgery, my disc was collapsed by 50% which made the foramen smaller, so if I side bent my neck, it would hit the nerves with a burning pain. There wasn't anything there to be removed by the surgeon, it was just the proximity of the vertebral bones because the disc was thinner.

I don't think there is a way to prevent this from happening after an injury. My experience is the natural aging process when you are years down the road from an injury. Discs do not have a blood supply which means lower oxygen levels in that tissue and discs don't heal themselves on their own. What I understand that does seem to help is to deal with any muscular issues that pull the spine out of alignment such as straightening the lordotic curve in the neck. I had physical therapy that did address this and with myofascial release to release tension held in the muscles. Bones are just going to go where the muscles pull them, so that cause must be addressed if it creates misalignment. In spite of all of that, good physical therapy, and maintaining good posture, the disc still ruptured and my path to spine surgery began. There is some literature that occasionally describes a disc recovering after it began bulging, and I have experienced that too with a thoracic disc that is no longer described as bulging on my MRI reports after my years of PT. The MFR therapy is body wide and deals with alignment and regaining functional movement. Sometimes, there is traction during therapy too, not with devices, but with my therapist's hands. I do think cervical discs are more fragile because of being smaller and having a greater range of normal movement, so these discs are providing cushioning on quite a great range of movement.

A chiropractor did do an adjustment on my neck only once, and it hurt. That was earlier on, but it was after the whiplash. I never did that again and I've always wondered if it contributed to degeneration of the injured disc. He was treating the trigger points in my neck and shoulders for thoracic outlet syndrome and wanted to do that as well. My physical therapist also treated trigger points and addressed all the fascial issues as well as strengthening muscles that work in opposition to muscles that were causing issues. I still continue to do this stretching on my own to maintain what I have. So the question under consideration is that no one knows how weak a bulging disc is. It shows up on an MRI, so we know it's changed from it's normal state.

Recently, I have also heard that Mayo has a chiropractor in their rehab department who does myofascial release. That was mentioned by a patient here on Connect.

Jennifer, it is even more impressive that the painting is watercolor. I think it is a more difficult medium to control. I'm glad that your successful medical story is available with the full painting.
Your description of your discs is fascinating. You have excellent manner of explanation.
Nucleoplasty enters the disc with a small needle device to removes part of the nucleus allowing the bulge to retract away the epidural space. Thermal energy is then used to to repair the cracks in the fibrous annulus which additionally denervates the painful edges.
With PT for the lumbar spine they'd want me on those therapy balls and give me exercises with modified yoga poses that aggravate the unstable conditions causing osteophyte complexs in my neck. The pain quickly lead me to understand the importance of concentrating on maintaining that stability.
No one would blindly recommend Chiropractic adjustment. I fully recommend chiropractic assessment.
Emotion based rejections of information sources are more interesting than fact based rejections and should anyway be respected.

@soccer1477, members have offered several tips and different options to consider. What next steps are you considering? How are you doing?

Hello Colleen... I guess my only option would be Mayo Clinic, who I already called and left a message to see if i can schedule an appointment. Meanwhile I will follow advice from Jennifer and schedule an appointment with a vascular doctor. The only thing I know is that I'm just tired of pain and seeing so many doctors.
Thanks,

I have this situation in my upper back. It spasms so tightly, but MRI showed nothing out of place there despite severe pain. I do have tarlov cysts in my sacral spine, but that shouldn't cause pain up that high. I am thinking that there is some myofacial disorder...connective tissue issues. My tissues contract so tightly it affects my heartbeat at times, makes me dizzy. Seek out a massage therapist skilled in myofascial release...this is very different than a typical massage for relaxation. There are also some unique therapists that do muscle and tissue release called Ortho Bionomy. There's a website to find therapists into this. There are also therapists out of the Barrel Institute https://www.barralinstitute.com that can help if this sort of tissue release. https://www.ortho-bionomy.org