chronic pain from head to toe just on left side of body

Cervical Spondylosis is not Fibromyalgia.  A quick search on Google will confirm.

Ditto

"And it is hard to learn how relax your bodyafter  being in pain for years...but a painkiller is not always the best move. "

That's right.  The body adapts itself to constant pain  to the point where it's constantly strained by its protective duties.  That's why the sleep event is so important.....that's the only time the body really relaxes back to its default status,  and that's when it re-reads its own vulnerabilities and instigates protective reactions which result in most of the painful symptoms we experience.  That makes it all the more important to get the sleeping postures right...the symptom intensities have a direct relationship with sleeping postures.  My advice on that would be...get out of bed and sleep somewhere else,  preferably on a sofa.

Hi there in the USA.

In the past year I have spent 55 days in hospital, and the answer has been the same as yours until September this year I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and a change of direction started to help me manage the pain better. They can't get rid of the pain but hopefully they will help getting me back on track. 

What is amazing is that once you start to tell friends about this condition every now and then someone says "oh I know another friend that has fibromyalgia".

I suppose what I am trying to say is don't keep it to yourself, I know to start with I did and probably everyone will say the same but it is 

........It is a cliché to say that but it helps to talk and as you start to discuss some will say try this try that and somewhere along the line you will find the key to make your life a little easier. ....

Sana check to see if your hips are level I have the same hip/ kidney pain and my right hip is higher than the left.like a scoliosis of the spine. I do postural correction exercises daily to help. I have had kidney stones in the past as well.similar pain

Being a doctor,  would you care to elaborate on why you think stress is a cause of left sided body pain ?

To helen01883:

Stress could be one of the reasons in some cases, I agree that copying mechanism may involve pain in the whole left or the right side of the body. And no one explain how it works- you go to a doctor, and they tell you one word - stress, that is all.

But this is not all time one reason to be considered.

 

No doctor can explain all the resons for feeling that complicated pain.

And the reason is that it is compicated.

There are may be a large number of resons why people feel this kind of pain, regardless left or right side of the body.

It could be: overusing of that side muscles,

pinched nerves,

long time holding tide some muscles, /during distress, and then become a habit/,

computer working, and any tipe repetitive moves at work,

and more...that I do not recall now, but each person can try to find the reason for himsef. Meanwhile the person have to dial with pain, so it goes both ways: reason and pain!

I understand it can all be cofusing,  with so many varied symptoms.  But that's why we have doctors,  surely,  to help us distinguish what condition it is.  If they fail at that 'identifying' task,  then we are left in the dark about how to deal with it.  Just going back to the original post by 'lauraspot',  it seems obvious she is referring to a neck problem most likely being the cause (trapped nerve perhaps0,  and that fits the bill in terms of some of the displayed symptoms.....numb hand, pims and needles etc.  It doesn't take a lot to make an educated guess that the neck might be the problem.  However, if we start to look at all the symptoms, the picture gets a bit confusing,  because such a range of symptoms don't describe any particular recognised condition.  If anyone wants to treat a condition properly,  they need to know the cause.  Leaving the cause open to speculation can cause a lot of confusion about best treatments.  Stress doesn't cause neurological symptoms as described,  so I think it's only fair to rule out that possibility....before people start getting stressed about it !

Oh , thank you all for keeping this post alive. It's been many months since i posted here on mehalf of my wife. Please dont mind me posting here again (With updates below), as many of you are active. It's heartening and sad at the same time that many of you share the same symptoms. I pray that you are ALL cured !!

My wife is suffering from ENTIRE LEFT body pain from left head,neck,arm,thigh,leg, foot for 8 yrs !!!

We have seen neurologists,got MRIs of head/neck,EEG/EMG.All appear normal.No root cause yet. She is currently seeing an osteopath who believes this can be treated by neuromuscular skeletal manipulation. Please seek an expert in your area and share your thoughts if this is a viable solution for your health as well ? 

As a side note, he also had her do a blood test , and her VitD levels were really low and DHEA (attributed to stress?) were low also. So she was taking VitD emulsion supplements and similarly DHEA also. Now her numbers are back up so she's stopped that recently. We hoped this might be the pain reason but it does not appear so. The pain comes and goes sporadically. When it comes it lasts NONstop for weeks. And then suddenly goes away for a few days and again comes back and lasts another few weeks. REcnetly though she was pain-free for 3 months (yes, she felt like in heaven ) , but just after new years it came back.. and the last 2 days again nonstop pain. Everytime the pain is on a 10 out of 10 scale. Its so sad to see her fight this with no cure. 

Coming to the pain itself , ( i am looking for ideas or similar symptons with any of you ? ) She does feel the pain is originating at the neck and just below the back of the head. Her neck area feels stiff always. 

Does someone know WHY & more importantly the cure??

Hi , I slipped from some steps 30/06/2013 &damaged cartelidge in my left knee this was very painful and I was set an operation date 23/09/2013.

On 21/08/2013 I slipped on a wet floor and went straight to the floor but caught my head on a linen basket on the way down crushing my head over against my left shoulder. 

I spent a month going in and out of A&E with Xrays and then an MRI.

The MRI showed three prolapsed discs from C3 down to C6. 

I was waiting to be seen in fracture clinic and in the mean time I was at the hospital with my wife and collapsed in serious pain from my neck.

I went to A&E and demanded to be seen by one of the fracture clinic consultant's, he came to me and admitted me to a ward for further tests.

by this time the pain was primarily right sided pain but was also spreading across my shoulders & down both, this was the sticky point. 

The Dr's told me that worst pain should have been the worst but it wasn't, I was being honest and it didn't fit with their scan.

I  was in hospital for 52 days and left being barely any better than the day I went in. Almost a year later they have diagnosed me with a fibromyalgia, I still have the dibilitating neck pain. In the mean time I have had my knee operation and a shoulder op that was outstanding with perfect movement in half the time expected. The shoulder op proved to me that my body has not forgotten how to repair.

With the all over body pain still beating me everyday I would have liked to have my neck fixed as a last gasp effort to beat the pain but they won't touch it because it doesn't fit what the books have taught them.

so I am stuck in this body forever with no intervention. 

Hi again,

What you describe has all the hallmarks of a neck problem,  possibly a trappede or threatened nerve,  perhaps due to some degeneration.  Any degeneration should be obvious by means of MRI,  but not always.  Another test would be ROM (range of movement) of the cervical spine.  If you could get a copy of the MRI already done,  you could use it to get a second opinion elsewhere.  It's important to establish most likely cause before commiting to any treatments,  and I would tend towards being wary of any neck manipulations unless the cause has been determined.  Physiotherapists tend to have more familiarioty with these issues than GPs,  and might be able to recognise the problem just from the array of symptoms.  Mostly, treatments are designed to be as safe as possible,  but if there's any dizzyness or unusual strains being experienced,  she should be prepared to stop the treatment right away.  Better safe etc...

PS.....

With regard to ways to deal with it in the meantime,  all I can suggest is that most neck nerve issues are either continued,  intensified,  or repeated because of unchanged sleeping arrangements.  By adjusting sleeping arrangements (habits) it might be possible to also affect the painful symptoms beneficially.  That's  a 'might be possible'  because I don't know  the actual problem,  but it might be worth a try....remembering that it usually takes a couple of nights of changed regime before effects kick in.  It's a trial and error approach until the best options are discovered.

Dr Helen have these patients also suffered from ME or glandular fever? I believe there is a connection

I stumbled on this forum, I think you may be right regaring

stress, however my pain is on my right side (maybe because

I am left handed?) I have had this pain for nigh on fourty years.

In response, my best guess is the stress causes muscular tension but from there all kinds of other, more complicated things start spiraling out of control - after all, the body is an interconnected organ. For example, when I get a tension headache, I feel like nerves are getting pinched (I am unwillingly doing this to myself!), then blood veins are getting restricted and then all kinds of weird symptoms like popping joints, seeing stars, sore patches on the surface, muslce pain and weakness, even body deformity - like gears out of sync - muscle, nerve, blood, bone - not working together, but against. I wear a night guard for grinding my teeth at night - which is connected to the jaw, neck, shoulder pain. Which I find spreads to back, leg and foot! And sometimes, it all seems to start behind my left eye. When I look in the mirror, my left eye will even look bigger, droppier and different to the right eye. If only I could stop the chain reaction at the beginning. Wish I could be more helpful here. If I can drift off to sleep, only for a moment - this really helps - something about the sleep numbness acts like a pain killer for me. But this is not always possible. Good luck.

I've tried other things such as massage (deep tissue and regular), aupuncture, stretches, hot and cold packs, metholated balms, excersize (this sometimes makes it worse), pain killers - but all these things are only temporary relief and I think we all would rather understand how to stop what's causing it, right? Hot bathes/ relaxation do help too. Again, not really a cure though..

I created an account just to reply to this.  I suffered from mononucleosis/EBV 10-15 years ago, and having left-side pain currently.

Can you tell me why you think it's related?  I'd love to hear your theory on this.