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Herniated disc pain returning after several months of what felt like improvement

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april73797
april73797

I have been off of work for almost a year with 2 bulging disks in my neck, and 2 in my back. I am scheduled to be released from my doctor's care (workers comp) in early January, and am scheduled to start work next week.

About 5 days ago, my pain in my right shoulder started flaring up again. I just went through physical therapy, and for several months, I was experiencing very minimal pain, and it seemed like I was making progress.

Basically it almost feels like a dislocated shoulder, and the pain travels down my arm, and the front of my shoulder bone hurts, as well as the rear shoulder blade. It started out with a knot in the back shoulder blade, and this caused my whole arm to hurt. I massaged the knot out, and the tension pain was relieved, but then the front of my shoulder started hurting, and I would stretch it, which hurt but it was a good pain (I would turn my head to a certain position where I could really feel the tension and the stretch all along my neck and shoulder), but it just persisted. When I did my shoulder rolls, I heard such loud cracks that it scared my cat away.

When I do some sort of exercise to relieve the pain, I feel tension in my back and I have to massage it. Now the pain is traveling to certain parts of my neck and back, and when I massage it, I feel cold sensations, especially traveling down my arm, and various places in the back. One time the entire right side of my back felt cold.

It seemed to be triggered about a week ago, when I had to drive around for 2 days, and had a LOT of anxiety and stress about it. The muscles tensed up, and it just kept getting worse. I haven't had this much pain since early this year. I am not sure if maybe I just slept on it wrong, or what, but I'm not sure what to do now.

Is this something I should be worrying about? I keep imagining that maybe my disk bulged more, and that is why my neck is cracking so much, and it feels almost dislocated. Should I worry about this?

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1 Reply

  • EileenH
    EileenH april73797

    Posted

    Do you have PMR as well? Disc problems are really not something we suffer too much.

    Are you sure it is entirely the discs causing the problem and not something called myofascial pain syndrome. That is due to the same inflammatory substances as cause PMR but instead of being systemic (all through the blood system) they are concentrated in what are called trigger points in the larger muscle groups and can be felt as hard knots of muscle fibres - they irritate the muscle and nearby nerves and cause pain and stiffness and spasmed muscles. That in turn can pull on the spine and cause problems - muscles are very strong!

    This is a good site:

    https://www.spine-health.com/glossary/myofascial-pain

    and this

    https://www.painscience.com/tutorials/trigger-points.php

    may also help explain.

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