Shoulder Pain, Tingly Arm, Pinched Nerve?

[MPankratz]

Hello, for over a month now I've been having tingling and numbness in the L hand and some in the L arm.  Its not exactly the pins-and-needles feeling i get from sleeping on the hand sometimes, but it is similar.  About last week I began having a burning pain in my shoulder and shooting pains in my L forearm.  I saw a doctor (physicians assistant, actually) who said that it was probably a pinched nerve.

He also said that my left hand was much weaker than my right.  This bothered me because I'm left handed and thought that at work I used my left for most of the lifting.  I could be wrong, in retrospect.  There is actually a visual difference in my left and right biceps.

I was given tylenol 3 for the pain (1 every 4 hours).  I had been taking aspiren w/ codeine (200mg/8mg) before i was given this prescription (they were purchased OTC when I was in canada).  I think they might have cut down in the effectiveness of it because now when I take it, I only get pain relief for 30 minutes at the most (and really only if i chew it).  The pain keeps getting worse and I'm beggining to think it isn't a pinched nerve.  Surely if it were, it would have been better within a month especially with NSAID + narcotic treatment I had been using.

Is it possible its some peripheral neuropathy?

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[Kdbailey]

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[Kdbailey]

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