Correctly Diagnosing
Cervical Radiculopathy

CERVICAL RADICULOPATHY: MY JOURNEY TO GETTING A PROPER DIAGNOSIS

Here are the health professionals that I consulted with to diagnose my cervical radiculopathy. A proper and correct diagnosis is obviously important to ensure that you get the correct treatment for your condition. I'll share my experiences with you and then I'll summarize how I would do it again (as if I were you suffering from the same symptoms). Remember, this is only what I experienced and you should not take this as medical advice, seek medical help for these symptoms.

Chiropractor: To his credit my chiropractor gave me a thorough exam including x-rays. Ironically, neither his exam nor the x-rays showed any signs of cervical radiculopathy. My chiropractor's suggestion was to continue seeing him two to three times per week, do some light stretching, and isometric exercises (which I promise I'll share with you in an upcoming blog post). I followed his advice for about a month, and then I continued only with the light stretching and the isometric exercises. I didn't feel that visiting him was helping me at all (actually his adjustments definitely aggravated my condition) so I discontinued with the visits.

Doctor (M.D.): After a few more months of only some very minor relief, I met with my M.D. Personally, I never really enjoyed visiting with my doctor. He always seems so rushed and in such a hurry, but this time, to his credit he seemed to listen as I got through mostly all of my symptoms and ultimately it was my M.D. who gave me the diagnosis that I had cervical radiculopathy. Unfortunately he didn't take any x-rays or MRIs. His thoughts were that some anti-inflammatories and pain management should clear it up. He also suggested some traction devices, which I 'll cover in another blog post, since they really did help and I still use them today. After a month with hardly any improvement he gave me a prescription to see a physical therapist. Again, I was not impressed with my office visit with my doctor, but at least I had a diagnosis to go on. Now I could do exactly what you are doing, going to the web and doing research on my own.

Physical Therapist: This was the most disappointing and biggest waste of money during my entire experience with cervical radiculopathy. The best thing my PT did for me was some localized massage therapy and when she found the inflamed muscle along my spine she massaged it which finally gave me some immediate relief, but then she stopped after about 5 seconds. I exclaimed, you found it! You found it! Ironically she told me, "we don't want to aggravate your condition and we don't want to go too fast." Between her lack of urgency and her fees (which I started calculating by the minute) I discontinued my visits with her after five visits. Even though I was very disappointed I was starting to grow hopeful as she had literally hit a nerve with my condition. Yet one more thing I could sleuth out on the net.

Massage Therapist: I was visiting with a massage therapist on a weekly basis and getting some temporary relief. After my experiences with the physical therapist I grew hopeful that my massage therapist and I could find the exact spot the physical therapist did. The massage was helpful and always left me feeling good. I continued with the massage therapy and my own research on the Internet until one day I was talking to my neighbor about my problem when she recommended....

Craniosacral Massage Therapy: I'm still not exactly sure which discipline of massage "craniosacral massage therapy" covers, so I simply call it "Bill and Sally Foster". When I first met Bill and Sally I would have sworn they were both former surgeons. They knew everything about the human anatomy, nerves, muscles, everything. I mean Everything. I worked mostly with Bill who explained it to me like this: He said, you're a software guy, right? When you get an error in your software you go through it step by step until you find the problem. That's exactly what we'll do with you. And then he went to work on me. This was definitely not your ordinary massage, this was bodywork. Bill started at the end of each of my five fingers, worked through my hand, through my wrist, up the forearm, through my elbow, around my tricep and through my shoulder. Through a variety of tests Bill was able to determine that the problem was not in my arm. Now he really went to work on me. Delicately and thoroughly he worked his way through the muscles of my upper back, through to my spine. What Bill had discovered (debugged, if you will) was that one of the longissimus muscles on the front of my spine was in spasm, pulling down the left side of my C6 and C7, impinging the radial nerve. He told me what he discovered and I almost cried, not because I was in pain but because finally, someone had found the source of the problem. So naturally the next question was, how do you massage a muscle in front of the spine? His response, "I'll move your trachea (windpipe) over to get to the muscle". The whole thing sounded kind of squishy but at this point I was a believer so we proceeded. Bill took his time, explained to me that the trachea was actually relatively soft tissue and could be moved, which is exactly what he proceeded to do. He knew he could only massage that particular muscle for a few seconds at a time because the phrenic nerve would be affected. Important note: Yet another reason why you shouldn't try this yourself, I was completely relaxed on my back on a massage table and if he continued his massage on those spinal muscles for more than 10 seconds at a time I would feel like I was going to pass out. And not because he was holding my windpipe in his other hand but because the phrenic nerve innervates your diaphragm... the muscles that make you breathe. Yes this guy knew what he was doing. And yes here is his phone number: 303-838-7940. If you're not in Colorado call and ask either Bill or Sally exactly what kind of massage therapist you should seek out in your local area given your symptoms. Every doctor's office in the world should take a lesson from Bill and Sally Foster. Our sessions were an hour and a half in length, affordable, and I never felt rushed.

Orthopedist: With Bill and Sally's help things had improved tremendously but there was still a slight tingling that would fire up every so often. I finally visited with the orthopedist who took x-rays which really didn't reveal anything new, or at least anything I didn't already know. The orthopedist's advice was to continue with the massage, traction without downward pressure (I'll cover that detail in the traction device blog post), and he suggested I increase the frequency of my isometric exercises. This guy was pretty good because he picked up on the benefits I had received through massage therapy and detected that I probably had a small but weak muscle group somewhere in my neck and/or spinal area, and isometrics would help strengthen them. Sure enough after about a week of doing isometric exercises (yet another blog post, I promise) the pain and tingling sensations were gone.

SUMMARY: You need a proper diagnosis in order to treat any medical condition, and to be honest I'm still not sure cervical radiculopathy was the correct diagnosis for me. In my mind I had some sort of postural condition, (or lack of conditioning), an environmental influence (my desk, my seat, my posture in the car - who knows?) or something that caused my longissimus muscle to spasm and pull on my C6 and C7 vertebrae, irritating the nerves coming out of there. So here is what I'd do if I had to do it again, or if I were you suffering from the same symptoms:

• Get x-rays, rule out anything obvious right off the bat.
• I'd visit with a Craniosacral Massage Therapist or an Orthopedist, or any health professional that you feel comfortable with whom you feel won't rush to judgement and will listen to all of your symptoms and understands what you're really experiencing. Sure doctors and physical therapists have to be knowledgeable also, but I got the notion that Bill and Sally (and my Orthopedist) were more thorough and less likely to say to themselves, "... that sounds like....", even before I was done describing all of my symptoms.
• Listen to and implement the medical advice you receive. These medical professionals didn't go through all of that training for you to ignore their instructions. Give them feedback too. If they say to take action and you should be felling better in 2 weeks and you're not, then call them on day 15 and follow up. I'm really critical of the medical professionals out there today but ultimately, they're only human. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get your particular situation right.

Comments

Rich Leach

Please keep your posts relevant to the topic: Correctly Diagnosing Cervical Radiculopathy. All non-relevant postings and/or spam will be removed.

February 25, 2011, 2:37 PM

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