Is There A Doctor in the House?

[edwardofhuncote]

I've had headaches most of my life... my entire adult life, actually.  Why?  Well...

It all started in 1985. Car wrecks, falls, accidents that inflicted head/neck injuries. Mom and Dad used to say if I hadn't come from such a long line of hard-headed people, I'd have been dead by 21. In addition to getting hit over the head, or whip-lashed I've dislocated both left and right shoulders at one point or another. Never broken a bone, but trauma after trauma to those "C" vertibrae led to a lifetime of dull pain. By age 32, I was totally addicted to prescription pain-killers. (they didn't have a catchword like "opioids" back then) It felt pretty good to not hurt, so I just did what came naturally. Before long, I was taking enough of them for a terminal cancer patient, just to get through a typical day. Pain management counseling and rehab stopped that nightmare, but of course did nothing for the underlying problem. 

Chiropractic treatment worked - if I went three times a week, which if you do the math equals a new Series II every year or so just in co-payments. So eventually I quit going, and just learned to live with having a headache every three or four days, by trying to enjoy the good days in between. Bought stock in Goody's Extra-Strength Headache Powders. Well, not really... but I definitely keep their local stock fresh. Hey, if you can joke about it... right? That was 'just life' for my mid-30's to mid-40's. Ten more years go under the bridge, and I'm 48 now. 

I've had a couple whoppers of a headache this past week... figured it was just another bad spell that would pass. Then three mornings ago, I woke up and my left hand was partly numb. The inside of the thumb, index and middle finger feel tingle-y like I fell asleep on them. I can feel heat, cold, and pressure, and I can move them just fine, but something definitely isn't right. I'm 100% certain the source is my neck. Certain ways I turn my head bear this theory out. There is a nerve being pinched in there... and it's one I need. 

So this is a new chapter... hopefully it's not the end of the road for me playing bass, though I have to admit... that's what is weighing heaviest on my mind right now. Like any other crazy musician, I only seem to care about whether or not this will affect my playing, and I'd do just about anything to keep that. Obviously I've made an appointment to get a referral to a specialist. A specialist of what, I'm not quite sure.  

So yeah... I'm a little bit freaked here.

Anybody got a happy ending for this kind of story?  

[cozmik_cowboy]

3 years of high school football (back when proper tackling technique started with "you put your helmet in his numbers..."), followed by a number of years of things like 2-3 weeks on end of 20+ hour days bouncing in trucks between lifting pianos, B-3s, and amp racks (way pre-Class D) on and off stages, followed by many more years of bouncing & heavy crap without the fun parts, and my back was in pain for years.
First, cortisone shots, then hydrocodone & Tramadol, then the pain spread into my hips & legs.  Turns out the arthritis all of the abuse had given my spine had led to a synovial cyst growing inside my spinal canal.  They removed parts of L3-L4 & cut out the cyst; told me it didn't need fused if i stayed away from football, skydiving, and heavy labor.  No prob, right?
Well, turns out nobody was hiring soundmen, historians, or archivists; thy were hiring assembly line workers.  3 months & I had to quit; displaced the L3-L4 joint into the spinal cord.  had no insurance for the surgery, so 4 years of the pills - one of each at least 4 times a day.
Then I got me insurance (thanks, Barack!) and got the fusion.  That's 4 years now, and still doing good.
Have you had an MRI on your neck?


Peter (who will admit that that first week & a half without narcotics was not fun...but I did it cold turkey with a 6-week supply in the medicine cabinet & 2 pills in my pocket the whole time)

[Zut8083]

Hi, Greg,

My mother in law is a retired physical therapist with 30+ years of adjusting patients (not chiropractic medicine to force alignment, but adjustment of muscles, diminishing of adhesions, strengthening joints, and slowly coaxing things back into stable alignment, thus improving problems with nerves, the alignment of the vertebrae and bones, and other fun stuff.  She has the equivalent of a grandfathered-in PhD in this regard, herself and has fixed numerous muscular/skeletal problems in me.  We are on good terms.

I would be happy to present your data to her and see if she can wax professional on what she might think is going on with your situation.  I think she will almost certainly say "yes" as she loves the mental challenge and running through the diagnostic trees.

If your cervical vertebrae have a history of being front and center with pain, I assume that playing bass affects the physiological reason.  While I don't mean the bass ought to go, by any means, I have seen wide, padded, furry straps that make it easier to shoulder these great things.  I believe Phil Lesh had one in the 70 that looked like a bomber jacket collar, and alluded to wanting wider straps in his autobiography.  (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBOSTX037L9rIHoMqviYpn3CW-vgrLNYF50SyL4swu4iy_3bYL; http://www.jambase.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Phil-Lesh-Munksgard-Crop-6-480x270.jpg)

Also, I could speculate, as an unlicensed family member, that you may have an adhesion in the area of your tricep/deltoid or in your shoulder/neck, and it's impinging on the main nerve clusters emerging from neck and running to fingers, and containing the brachial or radial nervesinnervating your hand.  That's the working hypothesis for my wife who has nearly the same symptomology that you describe and I sold this as a hypothesis to my mother in law without getting "Spocked".  I don't know. 

I hope you can find some relief, both for the worry and the discomfort as soon as possible.

Best regards,
John

[elwoodblue]

A while back a pinched nerve kept my pinky numb
for weeks until I had a proper deep massage. Every once in in a while
I get that tingle that makes me pay attention.
 It does seem to be in the shoulder/neck area as John points out
as a possibility.
 ....hoping you are finding relief soon, wish I could help more.




(p.s. got a shower massage ?)

[tbrannon]

Please look into CBD. The human endocannabinoid system can do some pretty amazing things when activated. 

[Zut8083]

Oh, yeah, sorry-

This is going to sound so dumb, but increasing your water intake will help, potentially by increasing blood volume to help find a way to get serum or blood into the muscles/connective tissue with the issue underlying your pain helping to start resolving the issue.  The extra, clean water will increase your blood pressure slightly and better push into all capillary beds and pharmacological compartments and irrigate them and wash out lactic acid, muscle breakdown products like myoglobin, and some of the other irritating candidates that may make this condition worse, clearing them renally.  I don't know if this will help or not due to feeling bloated, but it will help with maintaining muscle conditioning as hydration is key to powerlifiting/bodybuilding/massage and physical therapy recovery. 

Therapeutic massage, as mentioned, is also a great way to condition or manicure muscles or muscle groups and to spot issues with the tissue, but be careful and stay hydrated.  Your sleep posture can also seriously mess with your neck or shoulder alignment, and possibly then the nerves coming out of the cervical vertebrae.  I have a bad habit of sleeping on my side when on a too firm surface, or in a the wrong orientation, letting me wake up with a deadened hand or arm.  It's just the body impinging on that nerve bundle, and immediate manipulation/kneading/stripping of the tissue is what tends to get things off the nerves and restore feeling.

Neck issues from chronic muscle tension (oh, occiputs, I hate y'all), even torticollis could also lead to wonky cervical alignment, from personal experience, and that may be affecting the exit of the nerves from the cervical vertebrae.  Thus, it seems that any problem with the "intonation" of your trunk or pelvis and legs can cause problems by indirectly tugging on your skeletal system and causing strange configurations of the vertebrae that have neurological complications distal to the physiological issue.  I have chronic back problems and pain that stems from an asymmetric pelvic girdle which jacks up the spine/neck and also my legs.  Fortunately, I think a visit to a D.O., not an M.D., would be a great place to start, as I am no medical professional...not even on daytime TV.   

But, since the nerves from the cervical vertebrae run through the shoulder area, this painful foci could be initiated by a local or distal cause, a visit to a profession would help most. IF I am being an accurate shadetree enthusiast, a good massage therapist, an active release therapist/physical therapist, or a D.O. might help you find the cause (the latter especially) and remove it (the former especially) and give you an actual professional diagnosis and advice on how to resolve this problem and get this muscular/skeletal issue to abate.

Again, I hope you can find some respite as you chase down candidates for this inconvenience.  Mr. Brannon's suggestion of cbd oil, like the *pure* stuff, is an awesome suggestion bringing great pain abatement and calmness and few to no psychological effects, depending on the product's purity.  Products isolated by supercritical carbon dioxide solated from C. indica have more cbd molecules than similar isolates from hemp...but then again, there is my middle of the night feline assault/nightmare experience.  I still think cbds are a great suggestion from Mr. Brannon.  Godspeed, Greg.

Cheers,
John

[hammer]

I'll second the suggestions of John and Peter. Start with an MRI and the assumption that something is impinging on your cervical nerves.


Several years ago I had similar symptoms. Went through agonizing physical therapy for months with the PTs telling me it was muscular or a result of tendon problems. I've had those in the past and this pain felt very different plus the tingling in the fingers that developed made little sense given their diagnosis. Finally I got them to do a MRI.  Turns out I had developed a cyst that had grown to half the size of a golf ball that was impinging on some of the cervical nerves. Of course because these nerves run down the arm all the to the fingers that was the actual cause of the tingling and pain.


Had surgery to remove the cyst and the pain disappeared quickly. The tingling on the other hand took a lot longer to disappear (6-months) because it takes nerves a lot longer to heal than other parts of the body. It did eventually gradually go away and I've been fine for years.


Never really determined why the cyst had developed but having had a number of cycling accidents while taking part in races including a few "up and over the handlebars" when racing crits and sprinting probably contributed.


The important thing is to take care of it quickly and be assertive with your health care professionals. If the cause is an impingement and you try to just live with it you can do permanent nerve damage over time.

[dela217]

John,

I think you are on to something here.

Therapeutic massage certainly worked for me.   I did not have back or neck issues, just extreme shoulder pain.   I was looking at surgeries on both shoulders.

One night I was at a gig, and complaining about my shoulder and arm pain.   One of the folks I was playing music with at the time suggested a particular therapeutic massage therapist.   I figured that I didn't have anything to loose.   So for the last 8 months or so, I have been getting these massages aimed at putting more free range of motion back into my shoulders and arms.   When I first went to him my scapula were not moving, and frozen to my rib cage.   I had no rang of movement at all.  I was not even aware of it.   This is something that happened over many years and I first noticed my shoulder pain in 1984!   Well since the therapy, I now have full range of movement and am probably about 90% pain free.   It went from excruciating after a gig, to not even noticeable.   I am being told that my pain will go away 100% with the continued treatments.

It is definitely worth a try.   It is expensive, and I probably could also buy a Series bass after a year or so of this.   I am seeing him twice a week still, but soon will taper off the treatments.   Sure beats surgery in my opinion!

Michael

[cozmik_cowboy]

Glad the massage worked for you, Michael - and nice to see you again!
I really wish mine had been as easily fixed (believe it or not, fused vertebrae do sort of limit your flexibility....), but I doubt even your therapist could have massaged a cyst out from inside the bone   


Peter

[Zut8083]

What if the massage therapist was, like, Dolph Lundren, The Iron Sheik, or Schwarzenegger?  I bet they could massage bones.

Jokes aside, I am not claiming any expertise in this realm, and I should probably be ignored.  I have seen some things work, mostly while trying to fix myself (e.g. Manually releasing my left pecs to loosen up tightness, weakness, and pain in the shoulder and the socket, as the scapula proved to be a dead end; although a major and lasting improvement, it was not optimal as it was done on an Amtrak, in coach, and as surreptitiously as possible.  It probably looked to the nice old lady who was glancing at me from across the aisle like I was touching myself arbitrarily and impurely.  :/), or to listen to the diagnosis and its vetting when others have fixed my problems. 

If the current problem being discussed is inside or beneath the bone, or the vertebrae, I would agree that physical therapy is not a likely option until something more proactive happens to first treat the problem.  I am sorry if I meant to insist that my suggestions were the only ones relevant to the problem; obviously, any number of processes could be at work, and a licensed medical doctor would be the best option to pursue to then determine what is the problem, possibly then referring the patient to pt or other therapy for treatment.

But, what do I know?

https://im-01.gifer.com/fetch/w300-preview/e6/e6bcd035ccd28fcf253675609d8932df.gif

[edwardofhuncote]

I really appreciate the replies fellas. 

Just to clarify, I have never had any pain from playing bass (or guitar), not shoulder, back, or hands. Amazingly, other than some wrist tendonitis from ridiculously bad technique when I first started learning to play upright, I have never had any pain in my hands at all, ever. Not even a blister. Which is why I'm so torqued up about this latest development.

The headaches though, have been a chronic condition, since I was a kid, and there's really no doubt about why. I've had MRI's, CT scans, and they all bear out the same thing - the various head and neck injuries I've had have taken a toll. Even the chiropractor I went to for a while was shocked at what his pictures showed, particular the upper thorassic and lower cervical vertibrae. I guess this is the manifestation of what he saw ten years ago. I'm pretty sure there'll be some more imaging done in the near future... maybe I'll know more about what I'm up against when they see recent data.

Again, Thanks All... I really just needed to stave off some panic last night. The headache is gone today, and the tingling is less. Still there though. I expect a call from my MD with a referral any minute.

*never got the call... tomorrow I guess. 

[Zut8083]

Just take care of yourself, man, and be well.

[peoplechipper]

I've had 30+ years of back/neck problems from breaking my back in a fall; the neck was really made a problem from being t-boned on my bike 2 years later...I stretch my back and neck every morning as I get up and see my Chiropractor once a month for maintenance...I also use a chiropractic-type pillow to support my neck and haven't had a migraine since; what kinda pillow are you using? for me the pillow change was a dramatic improvement...Tony

[rv_bass]

Greg, perhaps your strap is the cause.  You mentioned that you use a 4-inch wide strap.  I’ve tried those in the past and found that they ride up on my neck, placing pressure on my neck that is uncomfortable, so I stopped using them.  I now use a three- inch wide padded Levy strap and have no more neck issues.
Rob

[mtjam]

I will second Rob's opinion about the strap. I have neck and upper back issues also, so I always used 4-inch straps on my basses when I started playing heavier instruments. I eventually discovered that the straps were pressing against my neck which exacerbated the issues. When I went back to 3-inch straps, there seemed to be improvement for me. Still have the pain, but not as bad. Oddly, I've found using the old Ace guitar straps is easier on my neck when playing. All this experimenting is why I own about 20 guitar straps!

Sorry to hear you are feeling like this, and I hope you find some relief very soon!