chronic pain, left side of body only

[hanalei]

I have been experiencing chronic pain from my neck, left shoulder, and arm. Pain and numbness now goes down into my left leg and I experience strange tingling in my left foot.  Periodically, I even feel some twitching and prickliness on the left side of my face.  Many days I just cry from frustration.  Over the years i have had innumerable PT visits, chiro, pilates, accupuncture, mri's, nerve conduction tests, etc.  The diagnosis I have repeatedly rec'd over the years is neck/shoulder strain.  What treatments, beside feldenkrais, are available for hard cases like mine?  I have avoided any serious discussion of surgery over the years since no one seems to be able to tell me the root cause, so I do not want to end up worse than I am.  Does this sound familiar to anyone out there?

[sksksk]

Yes I had the exact same thing I fell at work and have had pain, tingling, numbness, cold etc.. In arm, fingers leg& left side of face neck up to head aches. It's making me crazy and very worried as the symptoms get worse. There is even some weakness on that side. My shoulders still pop since the fall and are not as strong as they once were. Do u have any more information?

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello,

Since you are having numbness on the left side of the body,the basic problem lies in either the left side of cervical spine(ipsilateral) or on right side of brain(contralateral).
Tingling and numbness foot can be caused by diabetes, peripheral vascular disease,motor neuron disease,multiple sclerosis,or right sided pathology like intracranial space occupying lesion or impending stroke on the right side of brain.Cervical spondolysis  and spinal cord malignancies also have to be ruled out.

I feel that a consultation and neurological examintion by a neurologist will be the best.

Hope it helps. Take care and pls do keep me posted on how you are doing or if you have any additional queries.

[auntierere]

I am experiencing the exact same thing my entire left side. My symptoms showed up when I fell at work and injured my shoulder.  I had a rotar and labrum tear and the pain never ever left my neck. It has gotten worse not only is the pain in my neck, shoulder, armpit left leg and left foot I also have pain on the leftside of my neck going into my head causing me to have very bad headaches. I live in South Florida and have been to numerous doctors all of which go up in there shoulders and say yor MRI's are normal which is so frustrating. I go to yet another doctor at Cleveland Clinic tomorrow that suppose to have some knowledge of TOS