Good morning,
I am a veteran and have been using the VA for several years DT spine/cervical condition. I have suffered many years with migraines...but in 2007 I begain experince more than just neck pain/stiffness... I had two episodes of torticollis, and everytime i would look up both arms would tingle from shoulder to hands...treatment was meds and chiropractor.
Throughout that year my symptoms worsend... I waited to see neuro..then a miracle happened and i got better so I elected not to have any invasive treatment.
Between 2009 and 2012 I didn’t have any real daily symptoms that affected my ADLs but occasionally I would have weird extreme exacerbation of pain that would debilitate me for a day or two…
In 2012 I experienced more symptoms of pain…weird but worse…
….LIL background…The doctors took me off topramax and started me on depakote…I gained 20 pounds within a short time and decided I needed to start exercising because I didn’t want to be that big!!! After one of the only two days of very easy exercising regimens I had begun, I immediately began to notice a problem….It was like I had torticollis again…my neck hurt and my head started to turn to left…by day three of sleeping sitting up and taking meds I convinced the MD to order me MRI. MRI showed impinged C5 nerve, severe spinal stenosis, 4 herniated disc and few other things….MD increased my Tramadol to 3x, 800 motrin 3x, gabapentin 3x, and cyclobenzaprine3x PO daily and scheduled me to follow up with Neuro…Time rocked on and meds were working so again I wasn’t ready to do anything invasive. So I was scheduled to return to neuro q 3to6mths for evaluation to determine if I was ready for surgery…I wasn’t because pain was being controlled and I never saw the same DR twice!!!!!
Something happened between 2013 and 2014 another miracle ….I cut back on all my meds, only taking the min needed to keep pain at bay(thank you JESUS)
My last follow up w neuro at VA in Houston I saw a female and she was not very supportive of my decision not to do any treatments and told me that I was no longer going to need to be seen every 3 to 6 months, that if I decided to take care of the problem then I could call them and set up something..
Needless to say God has been good to me and I have never called!!!!

SORRY I KNOW THAT WAS A LOT TO READ…..but I said all that to say this…I know I have problems real ones but it is scary when you don’t see the same doctor and each has their own recommendations and even if you like one of them, they may not be there next time.
In all honesty I have not really needed them, basically maintaining level of fx with prescriptions from my MD. That is until here these last 3 weeks. I was cleaning my shower and probably scrubbing pretty good…it was dirty!!!! Since then my right arm is acting like my left are did when I had the impingment…
Most of the pain is localized and continuously noted in upper right arm but I have pinpoint pain in the area of the supraclavicular fossa that is extremely tender to palpation. Some other symptoms that I have observed are….with forward flexion I notice the veins only in right arm tighten. At times I have had numbness in thumb and at other times numbness has went from upper arm to hand….this morning I know it was because of how I slept but the numbness in my thumb was pulsating (super weird) It is also very hard to find a position to sleep that doesn’t elicit or exacerbate the problem.
Any insight? I can call VA neuro but they will probably not get to me for 30 to 90 days, so they would just tell me to come to the ER if symptoms worsen