All kinds of arm pain - struggling with fear

[s.mohseni]

Hi guys! It's been a long while since I used this forum regularly. I'd say about 4 or 5 years ago I managed to heal myself from severe RSI using help from this site. Well, I'm back in RSI hell again and I'm seeking a bit of support.

August of last year, I moved weirdly and twinged a nerve in my neck. Once of those times where you just know you've crushed something and it's going to hurt for a while. As expected, I couldn't move my neck without pain for weeks after. On top of that, I had burning pain and weakness down my left arm. Ever since then, I've had all kinds of issues in my arm and I'm struggling to overcome it. Because I healed from TMS the first time, I am doing my best to consider this as TMS too, but a couple of things are terrifying me and holding me back.

My symptoms are pain and stiffness in the fingers, burning 'pangs' of pain in my thumb and forefinger, a general heavy, weak feeling in the arm and sometimes all the usual tingles, burning, numbness. Most recently, I've noticed that my left hand often feels a lot colder to the touch compared to my right. One of the most worrying symptoms is that if something brushes against my ring finger, I feel a tickly nerve sensation in my elbow. I am an artist by trade so RSI is definitely my injury of choice regarding TMS and not being able to draw without pain is wearing me down emotionally. Notably I still have motor function and can still draw well, I don't 'drop things' the way people describe CTS. It's just infuriating pain and a feeling of swollen tenderness that plagues me all day long.

Why I am still scared: I had nerve conduction/EMG tests recently where they did actually tell me there were signs of nerve damage. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this and had hoped they would rule out any nerve problems. Often, people on this forum talk about TMS as it pertains to being told there is nothing physically wrong, but I've been told there is something wrong so... what now? On top of that, the external coldness is a physical symptom, it's not just pain. Things like this are keeping me terrified about there being physical damage, and I think this is holding me back a lot.

I think what I'm looking for today is just someone to tell me that they were also told they had nerve damage from EMG tests but managed to recover, or to hear about other people experiencing their limbs going cold or other physical manifestations. I've tried journalling but truth be told the way I healed the first time was to stop 'healing' altogether and eventually forgetting about the pain. Right now, it's stopping me doing my job as an artist and making me miserable, so not thinking about it when it hurts is REALLY tough. Any success stories about arm weakness and nerve problems that anyone can offer to give me some hope would be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Jayver17]

Man I have no medical training whatsoever and I don't know anything about RSI or CTS or anything so take this with a grain of salt but in response to one particular thing you mentioned...a few years back I had the worst back injury I'd ever had, I popped a disc in the gym lifting heavy weights - I felt it go in the moment, and knew I was in for a world of hurt. I had had several bouts of TMS prior so I was no stranger, but i knew this was some serious shit that needed to be properly dealt with - The sciatica was so bad I couldn't even walk for months.

I did a bunch of rehab, and made some big strides at first but as the sciatica improved I started getting this tingling, spasming sensation in my calf on the same affected leg. Every muscle on that leg was also extra weak and prone to fatigue/excessive soreness. I had been doing PT and my doctor suggested a nerve conduction test on the calf, probably not dissimilar to what you're describing. That neurologist was a total chode, she told me the nerve impingement was super bad, it would never heal properly on its own and I'd for sure need surgery - zero tact or bedside manner whatsoever. I went back to my doctor and he agreed with the assessment. So I got super depressed; I continued to do PT but the symptoms never improved.

Finally I just bit the bullet and saw an orthopedic surgeon to talk about my options. He looked at my MRI and was like "You want surgery for this? This don't look that bad, you sure? I seen guys who look way worse than this and they barely feel it". He told me that and within 3 weeks most of my symptoms cleared up and I was basically fine.

Now, the weird tingling/spasming in the calf? That nerve stuff, that did persist off and on for a few years after. But like, it was all TMS stuff, so like it doesn't matter - I still get some of that spasming in the calf on occasion to this day, and that right calf is still just slightly weaker than the other one, and I just ignore it and it never bothers me. And now I run 5ks and 10ks competitively again with no issues, and plan to start training for my first marathon next year.

So I don't know your situation or your condition at all. But my point is...I also had a bad result on a nerve conduction test once, and at least in my case, it turned out to be a big fat nothing, bad as my idiot doctors tried to scare me into surgery.
Don't know if that'll help you at all, but that's my story.

 

[s.mohseni]

So I don't know your situation or your condition at all. But my point is...I also had a bad result on a nerve conduction test once, and at least in my case, it turned out to be a big fat nothing, bad as my idiot doctors tried to scare me into surgery.
Don't know if that'll help you at all, but that's my story.

Jayver17, thank you for sharing this. It's so worrying when I can seemingly pinpoint the exact moment of 'injury' like this, with a pop or a twinge, but even so, common sense tells me that the twinge was months ago and should have healed by now. Firstly, I'm sorry that the neurologist made things so much worse like that, for goodness sake! But thankful that the surgeon could fix some of those wrongs eventually, enough so that you were able to heal. I've contacted my doctor today again for hopefully the same sort of result: I want them to do an MRI and to be told that it's nothing serious. I know that's a double-edged sword because whatever I get told could just make things a lot worse, but right now NOT having the MRI is something that will hang over me and hold me back regardless. At least thanks to messages like yours, I can stay level-headed and keep in mind that even a bad test is not a death sentence. I don't think there's any chance of me getting surgery because my hand is too important to me and quite frankly I'm too scared to take the risk, plus I know about TMS so I'd probably like to give it a good few years more before committing to surgery. Still, I'm an anxious person and sometimes I just need a doctor to tell me it's fine (which is silly because of course I know it's a placebo but I still need it!). Thank you for sharing your encouragement, it does help a lot and I'm glad you were able to heal and get better from what sounds like a really tough time in your life.

 

[Jayver17]

Jayver17, thank you for sharing this. It's so worrying when I can seemingly pinpoint the exact moment of 'injury' like this, with a pop or a twinge, but even so, common sense tells me that the twinge was months ago and should have healed by now. Firstly, I'm sorry that the neurologist made things so much worse like that, for goodness sake! But thankful that the surgeon could fix some of those wrongs eventually, enough so that you were able to heal. I've contacted my doctor today again for hopefully the same sort of result: I want them to do an MRI and to be told that it's nothing serious. I know that's a double-edged sword because whatever I get told could just make things a lot worse, but right now NOT having the MRI is something that will hang over me and hold me back regardless. At least thanks to messages like yours, I can stay level-headed and keep in mind that even a bad test is not a death sentence. I don't think there's any chance of me getting surgery because my hand is too important to me and quite frankly I'm too scared to take the risk, plus I know about TMS so I'd probably like to give it a good few years more before committing to surgery. Still, I'm an anxious person and sometimes I just need a doctor to tell me it's fine (which is silly because of course I know it's a placebo but I still need it!). Thank you for sharing your encouragement, it does help a lot and I'm glad you were able to heal and get better from what sounds like a really tough time in your life.

I would also mention that in regards to wanting a clean MRI...I mean, yeah, I always want one too, who doesn't? I first learned I had TMS on account of chronic, debilitating back pain, and I read sarno's book and it all went away overnight - it was miraculous, thought I was cured forever. Years later I injured a hamstring, and spent almost a year in rehab. PT never worked, the thing never got better so I had an MRI done in preparation for discussing surgery options. Ortho looks over my MRI and says "this a joke? There's nothing wrong with your leg, what are you hear for?" Apparently the PT was effective, the hamstring had healed months prior and I was only finding out just then. So the big take away for me there was that TMS wasn't done with me, that it could attack in crafty ways and that getting imaging done was the surefire way to figuring out that's what was really going on; within weeks all the symptoms cleared up, I was good as new. So your logic there is sound as far as wanting a good MRI result.

So that being said...years later I was having a minor flare up of my old back problem, which didn't concern me much because I knew full well that it was likely TMS at this point, but still there was some spasming involved and I was having trouble sleeping, so I went to see a doctor just to try to get a prescription for muscle relaxants so I could get a solid 10 hours. He did a standard x ray and when we were going over it he points to my lumbar and says "this is no good, you got a fully degenerated disc, plus bone spurs - you need to reach out to a surgeon immediately". Fully degenerated disc barely registered, I've had one of those since I was like 25, it never slowed me down. But bone spurs? Those were new, and they sounded nefarious.

New condition = new attack vector, I just couldn't get those bone spurs out of my head and in no time I was in a full blown TMS cycle. It came and went for like a year, and in my desperation to find relief I managed to find my way to Dr. Rauschbaum at NY Langone in Manhattan - Dr. Sarno's protege and the GP who took over his clinic when he retired. He brought me in and looked at my imaging and told me everything looked fine, that it was surely TMS and nothing to worry about physically. "But what about the bone spurs?" I asked, "aren't those really bad?"
"No, why would they be?" He said to me, "they're not touching any sensitive tissue so what harm are they doing? Lots of people have bone spurs, it's not a big deal".
So...I learned a new lesson: clean images aren't everything - your MRI can look like hot garbage and you can still be fine. I struggled with some minor back symptoms off and on for another couple months, but eventually it cleared up and hasn't bothered me since.

I'm with you fully, I get the inclination - the biggest hurdle for me to clear in accepting TMS and treating it as such, is getting assurance from a doctor - a REAL doctor, that I'm physically fine and not going to damage anything by living life. It's annoying, but I need to hear it. BUT I've also learned that you're not always going to get that assurance from a clean image, and you might actually be fine and still have a doctor tell you you're not. In my experience, sometimes doctors have looked at me and told me I'm all good, and when they do the TMS symptoms tend to clear up fairly soon after, and that's great. But sometimes doctors tell me things like I have bone spurs or I have a nerve impingement, I'll need surgery, it will never heal, yadda yadda yadda...and then it's many more months of pain because I saw the wrong doctor who told me the wrong thing. It's a crapshoot, and a lot of doctors suck. Just sayin'.

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

August of last year, I moved weirdly and twinged a nerve in my neck. Once of those times where you just know you've crushed something and it's going to hurt for a while.

Hi! I am keen to hear your MRI results (appreciating that Jayver is fully correct about it not being the be all and end all). This stuck out to me though because you say you moved weirdly and twinged your neck - fair enough and that can happen - but do you really think you're capable of crushing something just through that action? You'd likely engage in more extreme moments in your sleep. Your body is not that fragile, so whilst I'm not questioning whether or not it was painful, I doubt you could do that much damage from just moving weirdly. We are designed to move. Your reaction here is more akin to being in a car crash (If you only gave me the second sentence and I had to guess what had happened in the first sentence).

I'm no expert on nerves but your results could be inconsequential - did they give any explanation for it? I would have downplayed the neck twinge and see what their explanation was then. If they had no explanation then that is instructive. They may have also said, if you didn't give them the out of telling them you badly twinged your neck - doctors and experts who don't really understand will latch onto anything you give them - they'll say "oh yes that must have done it", that such results could be seen in asymptomatic people, i.e. a difference in nerve conduction (perhaps within a range) is normal and could be found in any random person plucked off of the street. It does help to be tactical with doctors and specialists who don't know about TMS once you do

 

[s.mohseni]

Hi! I am keen to hear your MRI results (appreciating that Jayver is fully correct about it not being the be all and end all). This stuck out to me though because you say you moved weirdly and twinged your neck - fair enough and that can happen - but do you really think you're capable of crushing something just through that action? You'd likely engage in more extreme moments in your sleep. Your body is not that fragile, so whilst I'm not questioning whether or not it was painful, I doubt you could do that much damage from just moving weirdly. We are designed to move. Your reaction here is more akin to being in a car crash (If you only gave me the second sentence and I had to guess what had happened in the first sentence).

I'm no expert on nerves but your results could be inconsequential - did they give any explanation for it? I would have downplayed the neck twinge and see what their explanation was then. If they had no explanation then that is instructive. They may have also said, if you didn't give them the out of telling them you badly twinged your neck - doctors and experts who don't really understand will latch onto anything you give them - they'll say "oh yes that must have done it", that such results could be seen in asymptomatic people, i.e. a difference in nerve conduction (perhaps within a range) is normal and could be found in any random person plucked off of the street. It does help to be tactical with doctors and specialists who don't know about TMS once you do

Thank you for your reply. I actually had the doctor ring me last Friday to discuss the EMG results. I'm sure it was dumbed down for me, but the basic idea I could gather is that there is no ongoing issue/compression, which is good, but they can see on the EMG that there was an injury to the neck nerves about a year or two ago (which is in line with when I hurt my neck) and that the nerves have healed but may have healed wrong. I am still being referred for the MRI to see what can be done. As for my issues, I'm still getting daily pain whenever I hold a pencil at all. Any kind of grip is very sore and causes burning and discomfort. I agree that I didn't really do much to hurt my neck in the first place. Just worried that continuing to use my arm for the weeks and months after that has lead to some additional issues and given me this terrible RSI. Thank you for you insight. I am hoping that all the EMG/nerve conduction test means is that whatever went wrong is now healed, but my hand is still KILLING me and I haven't really managed to 'trick' the pain into going away yet. Still waiting on the magical pain free day that will give me the confidence to assume it's all just TMS and not physical. And of course I know that actively waiting and hoping for that is counterproductive!! Absolute nightmare haha.

Jayver, thank you for your response as well. I agree that it's probably a bad idea to hope too much for a 'clean' MRI and that healing is still possible even if my arm is a complete mess from years of drawing as an artist, which wouldn't suprise me. I'm actually feeling good in myself right now and getting close to outcome independence. The pain makes things difficult but doesn't stop me too much, I've become very good at working through pain. Just wish I didn't have to every day. I can't imagine not feeling any kind of nerve discomfort in my hand these days, but I'm trying to be hopeful. Here's hoping we both get a doctor that understands and doesn't set our healing back months and months.

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

Thank you for your reply. I actually had the doctor ring me last Friday to discuss the EMG results. I'm sure it was dumbed down for me, but the basic idea I could gather is that there is no ongoing issue/compression, which is good,

Great! Does that go against what you said above around there being nerve damage?

but they can see on the EMG that there was an injury to the neck nerves about a year or two ago (which is in line with when I hurt my neck) and that the nerves have healed but may have healed wrong.

I know this may sound fanciful, although there are a lot of case studies from the experts (notably Dr Sarno) stating that TMS can target old injury sites. Given that you agree about having not done much to injure it at the time, I think it's conceivable that the supposed "injury" to the neck nerves may have just been something over time as a result of your occupation (as an artist). That makes more sense to me than this rather innocuous incident causing damage. The TMS has then locked onto that old injury site (that was injured before this incident a couple of years ago - it just wasn't causing symptoms as it wasn't a big deal structurally - not every "injury" causes pain and the body can work in the background as it always does to regenerate) as it has a structural explanation (it's more likely to be able to trick you into thinking it's a structural issue). I think TMS is also far more likely than the nerves healing wrong. Your body can heal the largest bone in your body (the femur) in six months, it's more than capable of healing from you moving your neck awkwardly and twinging a nerve. All of these things point to TMS to me, especially given how much pain you are in (there's no ongoing issue/compression which would explain it).

Food for thought I am keen to hear what the MRI says.

 

[s.mohseni]

Great! Does that go against what you said above around there being nerve damage?



I know this may sound fanciful, although there are a lot of case studies from the experts (notably Dr Sarno) stating that TMS can target old injury sites. Given that you agree about having not done much to injure it at the time, I think it's conceivable that the supposed "injury" to the neck nerves may have just been something over time as a result of your occupation (as an artist). That makes more sense to me than this rather innocuous incident causing damage. The TMS has then locked onto that old injury site (that was injured before this incident a couple of years ago - it just wasn't causing symptoms as it wasn't a big deal structurally - not every "injury" causes pain and the body can work in the background as it always does to regenerate) as it has a structural explanation (it's more likely to be able to trick you into thinking it's a structural issue). I think TMS is also far more likely than the nerves healing wrong. Your body can heal the largest bone in your body (the femur) in six months, it's more than capable of healing from you moving your neck awkwardly and twinging a nerve. All of these things point to TMS to me, especially given how much pain you are in (there's no ongoing issue/compression which would explain it).

Food for thought I am keen to hear what the MRI says.

It does alleviate some of the worries I had about further hurting myself. I'm glad that I can continue to work at least, even when it hurts. I think this will remove a lot of worry I did have. I think everything you say does make perfect sense; I am trying to consider that this instance of my nerves being injured and the evidence of healing is just normal 'wear and tear' if you like of me working a lot with my arm and these nerves, and not a problem that should cause pain like this. Something I'm also trying to latch onto lately is that I remember initially 'getting better' in the weeks that followed, and then flared up again, and then got better, and now I seem to be constantly in pain so I got very scared, but if it really was because of this last year then it should have been constant all the way through. Doing my best to try and find 'chinks in the armour' of TMS like this so that my brain can finally calm down and believe it. If I was TMS and my victim was an artist, I would definitely target the hand, and I know that I've done this all before, so I think it's all highly likely and your response fills me with more confidence as well, so thank you. Now I'm just stuck in that awkward limbo stage of waiting for the pain to just move on in it's own time. I like to think I'm no longer scared by it but I'm still very much annoyed by it, I must admit.