Undiagnosed pain, shoulder blades, ribs, back

[Shanny4]

My husband has been experienced back pain on an off for several years now. The pain started at his sciatica which eventually went away after getting injections to help with the pain. Slowly he started complaining of pain under his shoulder blades and mid back. Pain along both sides of his spine. This pain is becoming worse and now seems to be also radiating to his ribs/sides. He complained yesterday of pain under his rib. He has been to our local clinic several times and been prescribed anti-inflammatory medication. Which has not helped. He has had MRI and x-ray of his back and chest/ribs. All come back fine. He has tried chiropractic, clinical message and talked with a physical therapist. Unsure of what to do now... the pain is not getting better. I have made him an appointment for specialist that deals with the Spine and Peripheral Nerves. Can anyone tell me if we are on the right track. We have not had much help in what direction to go next. Leaving everyone baffled at this point. Any advise would be extremely helpful. He is a healthy male age 36, healthy weight, recent medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol.

[toourlady89]

I have similar kind of pains. It actually goes anywhere -- My back, under the shoulder blades, hips. legs, arms, neck---
Try and press on the area or give him a chopping like massage. See if that will make him burp or belch. and see if it helps the pain.
If its making him burp, then its escaped / trapped gas from his stomach.
Then treatment will be directed to relieving abdominal gas.
Hope it works.
Its common but unknown to many. Hope he finds out whats causing his pains. Good luck to you.

[Shanny4]

That is our hope next is to have the EMG ran by this specialist. The message therapist also recommended the acupuncture. The knots in his muscles are extremely tight and even surprised her. Thanks for your comment. Appreciate all the information we have received. It will be great knowledge when we go in for his appointment. We want to know what the doctor can do to help him, but we also want to be able to have questions answered. Thank you!

[Shanny4]

Thank You for your response. I understand what your saying and have seen exactly what your describing. A friend of mine had recently returned from a visit from a nearby larger city where she was raving about how wonderful her new chiropractor is. Apparently he has varied schooling that your talking about. His business is chiropractic and wellness.Thank you for helping us keep an open mind with alternatives and chiropractors. We couldn't agree more about avoiding spine surgery. That is by far the last resort. We currently have an appointment at the end of the month for the spine/nerve/brain doctor. We want to make sure he does not have anything very serious going on and hope to get that nerve test done. We are still keeping options open. Thanks for your time.

[Anonymouse88]

An EMG (nerve test) might be in order to see if there's nerve damage.  If a specialist didn't look at the thoracic spine MRI, you should have a specialist look at it (be sure to show it to the new spine specialist).  More injections might be helpful, and it's a more conservative route than surgery.

If you want to go for more holistic methods, find an osteopath (DO) who will do osteopathic manipulation, and ask about dry needling.  They find trigger points (basically muscle knots) and insert an acupuncture needle.  Nothing is injected.  I've had mostly one-sided thoracic back pain, PT didn't help much, spine was fine, and I've seen an osteopath for a couple of treatments.  The dry needling really hurts when it's being done, but I could feel things unknotting immediately.  It's an art, though, so it can potentially make things worse if it's not done well.  I also take a tiny dose of flexeril at night, which seems to help, and I have robaxin (another muscle relaxant) PRN for when I need it.

With ascending pain, it might be worth getting a brain and neck MRI to make sure there isn't something going wrong higher up.

[AShaw55]

I'm very surprised chiropractic care had no benefit for the problems your husband is having.  I consider myself passionate about the chiropractic philosophy and have seen it work for many people with symptoms very similar to your husbands conditions.  Unfortunately because of how much the division within the chiropractic profession some doctors are much better equipped to treat more complex conditions like your husbands.  Specifically there are classic straight chiros who are solely focused on the spine and muscles from schools like Palmer, Life or Logan.  Where as the future of the profession is lays with doctors who back scientific evidence and practice more like your primary care physician does.  These chiros come from school like National University or New York College of Chiro.  It might be worth giving another chiropractor a try before resorting to invasive procedures.  If chiropractic is still unsuccessful I think the route your headed down is the right one.  


With that said, exhaust EVERY holistic/non-invasive approach before going down the road of surgery.  Surgery for any part of the spine is a serious procedure and while it will probably make his pain better it will probably never be completely gone and other issues will definitely arise later in life.  I understand if you disregard my rant on the chiro profession but surgery should be a last resort because things will never be normal ever again after surgery to the spine.

[acewild]

cool-hot gels be good or see a dr.