indescribably intense pain in neck, shoulder and down left arm

[hankito]

My wife was in the hospital for abdominal surgery (to remove a lapband).  I know totally unrelated right? Curiously when she left the hospital she started having a great deal of pain in her shoulder and down her arm.  The doctor who did the surgery then said this was just some result of stress and would probably go away.  The pain was indescribably intense and we proceeded to work with our HMO PCP.  Over the past year she's been in a never ending cycle of seeing various doctors while the PCP tries to figure out what is wrong with her.  We've seen doctors for the tendons, muscles.  She's had numerous MRIs and xrays that were inconclusive.  The PCP first prescribed vicoden and then percocet   The doctors saw very small almost undetectable arthritis but nothing that would cause this pain.  Also found that they really didn't see an impingment.  Over the last 6 months her pain has continually grown and the pain medications haven't helped at all.  She's even (after asking her PCP) taken 1 percocet, 1 vicoden and soma at the same time because the PCP was grabbing at straws not sure if this was muscle, tendon both or inflammation.  All this does is lay her out cold for a few hours.  We've seen a sports medicine physician and a physical theropist who believe this to be nerve damage because after much time the pain, very intense pain can only be described as her neck, shoulder and down her arm.  It is a stabbing shooting pain that feels like 'electricity' through the affected area.  The PCP has no prescribed Gabapentin for nerve pain but so far hasn't worked well.

We are at a loss because the PCP has all but given up.  My wife goes into his office crying and begging and he really has nothing to say.  His general demeanor is "I don't know what to tell you"  At this point I am willing to go outside of the insurance to find any doctor who can work with my wife's case and pin point exactly what is going on.  Everything I suggest gets shot down.  I suggested nerve connection test and the answer was "try this medication and I'll see you in two weeks" this never ending response has been why its taken a year and we've gotten no where.  We've got an appointment with a spine doctor but thats out in October while my wife practially wants to die just to escape the pain.

Any ideas or direction would be awesome because at this point I'll pay anything, go to any state to see any 'good' doctor who can pick up the torch and help find and fix the underlying problem.  Id prefer of course in this economy through insurance but really I just want my wife to stop suffering daily while the PCP delays with remedies that don't work
OR
Any ideas on possible remedies or if seeing a spine doctor and a nerve connection test as well as seeing a neurologist makes sense?  I'd at least like to go back to the PCP with some ammo to get things into gear.

[jimbo3716]

Go to a neuroscience surgeon to see whats wrong with your wife, I finally did and got some relief from him doing surgey on my neck.  I'm not a 100% without pain now, but it sure is a lot better than the way I did feel before the surgery.

[hankito]

Also forgot to mention she wears wrist guards because she had noted throughout this process that her hands would constantly fall asleep over night.  Not like me or most people were sometimes you would sleep on your hand wrong, but all the time.  This was dismissed as unfixable by the PCP and our 'work around' is these wrist guards that keep her wrists in a certain position.  Its much more prevalent in her left wrist were her neck, shoulder injury is.