8 Steps To Beating
Cervical Radiculopathy - 2 Years Pain Free!
8 Steps To Beating Cervical Radiculopathy
CERVICAL RADICULOPATHY - 2 YEARS PAIN FREE
This month is an anniversary - of sorts - for me, it's been 2 years now since I've last experienced any symptoms of cervical radiculopathy. Since this condition affected my lifestyle in such a big way I attacked it head on - and along the way I made friends with quite a few folks who were literally "feeling my pain". I built a little video presentation to give you some insight into some of the things I did to beat this pain in the neck =). I really believe I had a different, albeit relatively simple condition which caused my condition; unfortunately this may be quite different from what you're dealing with as some folks have actually shared with me some of their x-rays and images which clearly show a degeneration of disk and tissue in and around the cervical spine. The oddity of this experience - yours and mine - is that most medical professionals will chalk up your pain and discomfort to this condition, and correctly so. However, several of us have symptoms and conditions that aren't quite so clearly defined yet have been resigned to cervical radiculopathy by our doctors via half-assed diagnosis, and quite honestly, poor medical assessments which stopped short of discovering a potential cause of the symptoms. All along the way I tried to hold my frustration and pain in check; I always did what the medical experts said I should do and for the most part yielded some kind of success. Yet a few key things stood out that the doctors advised me to do which actually made my situation worse. Nowadays with health care in the toilet and in the political forefront the last thing I want to do is to turn my blog into a rally. I suppose the best thing I could suggest is to question everything - not out of disdain or contempt but from a genuine desire to learn all you can about what the problem is with your body. After all, it is your body....
Background Information
I was 39 years of age, in good health. I was active, in the gym 4 or 5 days a week, strength, cardio and flexibility training. All in all, I was maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I did not experience any trauma or injury and this condition came on gradually, sorta snuck up on me....
The Pain
An uncomfortable sensation that radiated from my shoulder, down my arm and into my thumb and forefinger. Certain activities (actually most activities), maintaining certain postures and especially carrying a shoulder bag caused these sensations to shoot down my arm. Unless I altered my posture it became so uncomfortable that it turned into a genuine pain. Oddly, I never felt any pain in or around my neck, it was always down my arm, mostly south of my elbow.
The Doctor (M.D.)
... rushed me in and out of the exam room as quickly as possible. No x-rays, no range of motion tests, we simply had a conversation. Oh, and they took my heart rate and blood pressue. (Heart rate was fine, blood pressure was a little elevated, maybe because I had been in the waiting room for 40 minutes?) He said I had cervical radiculopathy and gave me prescriptions for anti-inflammatories, pain and physical therapy. He was nice, but useless.
The Physical Therapist
Very professional, very nice, and very expensive. After the 4th visit she discovered that when she applied some pressure near my spine the pain went away. I thought, "progress!". She thought, "let's not mess with it!" One visit more I stopped going to see her, no results beyond that one area near my spine. My sessions were a half hour long, and since I had to make my deductible on my insurance it was $70 for a half hour visit. Most of the time she quit early... no sense of time, money or even the basics of her being a business and me being the consumer.
The cervical spine - the part of the spine affected by this condition. In my case it was a contracted muscle along the front of the spine causing an impingment on a nerve. I'll be posting additional blogs about cervical traction so check back often for updates. Be sure to check out my earlier postings and presentations about this condition too.
All of that schooling, training and never Business 101. I've been beat up over previous blog postings for being too hard on vendors or having too high of expectations of business and their products, but you can email me all you want on this one, if you're so smart and educated that you're capable of healing people, you should also be able to work the cash register. I should be able to run my software business like these doctors and therapists run theirs....
The Orthopedist
Finally, someone took an x-ray. He saw some disc degeneration but didn't think it was too bad. He suggested surgery down the road, cervical traction (he was one who suggested the wrong kind too) but also suggested isometric contractions to help strengthen the affected area. I felt like I made a little progress with the Ortho, but I still felt overlooked.... For what it's worth I had to take half a day off from working to find this Orthopedist by way of my insurance company. Again, not a rally, but clearly, this health care system of ours is less of a system and more of health care chaos. Genuinely and sincerely, looking back on all of this with all drama aside, I seriously question how the experience could have been any worse.
Bill and Sally Foster - Massage Therapists and Rock Stars
Bill specializes in St. Johns massage therapy, and he went to work on me allright. He discovered a contracted longissimus muscle along the front of my spine, causing discs to to impinge on my nerve. He moved my trachea (that's a whole other Oprah for another time) to get to the affected muscle and loosened it up. Immediate relief. If I had to answer the question, "Hey Rich, what fixed your cervical radiculopathy?" I would have to say it was Bill Foster who took the time to assess my condition, pinpoint the exact cause and rendered treatment to relieve the problem. I'm so thankful that I found Bill and I'm just a little jaded with the uber-medical professionals.... why couldn't they have done what Bill did? BTW, Bill's appointments were 75 minutes long. When was the last time you saw your doctor for 75 minutes?
What I Would Do Differently Next Time
... jeez I hope there never is a "next time". Since I'm not a doctor, I think I would definitley question each medical professional's judgement right away. I trusted that each doctor was 'in the know', had my best interest at heart and understood that I wanted to recover from this condition as quickly as possible. Looking back I can honestly say I don't think all of those things were true for any of the doctors that I saw. One wanted me out of his office as quickly as possible, another wasn't sure if she actually found the problem or not and didn't want to aggravate it any further and the other doctor left me with the "oh well, guess you're getting old". That's crap. If I had to do this all over again, I think I would pursue some kind of athletic training, sports rehab modalities. They seem to be the only professionals out there who 
understand that they need to mend you and get you back into action as quickly as possible. And of course, if I visit with a doctor for anything ever again and don't get a warm and fuzzy that she's fully addressing my problem, I'm going for a second opinion and a referral, at the very least.
My Own Take On All Of This
I'm not a doctor. But the doctors that treated me were only doctors by virtue of their education, certifications and training. They failed to apply any of those things long enough to discover the root cause of my issue and it was by the luck of the draw that I met up with Bill and Sally Foster who did the real work and heavy lifting. I hate to say it, but it's going to be a long time before I trust a doctor's opinion again. Collect second and third opinions, research on your own, seek alternative treatments, alternative sources of information and never stop listening to that little voice inside that says, "keep going, we're not there yet".
Comments
- Rich Leach
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Please keep your posts relevant to the topic: 8 Steps To Beating Cervical Radiculopathy - 2 Years Pain Free. All non-relevant postings and/or spam will be removed.
- March 1, 2011, 7:24 AM
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