Neck/back/shoulder/arm pain, tingling, atrophy...

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I dont know what I did to have this happen, but I was working a LOT when it started. I am a carpet/vinyl installer and do a lot of heavy lifting and moving stuff around, which isnt that easy sometimes with my 130 pound frame.
I started getting this stiffness in my upper/mid trapezius and when that would happen I would take some time off work and it would get better. Then it got to the point after doing that a couple times that I lost the ability to use my arm for a while. Every muscle from the right side of my back and neck to my elbow atrophied on me. I couldnt so much as lift my arm up.
I ended up clearing my schedule and going to the emergency room. The doctor there assumed that I had a torn trapezius and to take it easy for a while, so I did. After it didnt get any better for a week or two I ended up going to see my doctor. We both assumed that it could be a torn rotator cuff so he took some xrays of my shoulder and said it all looked fine then sent me off for an MRI to check the rotator cuff tendons. Everything was fine there.
I then got my neck xrayed and didnt see anything new there, although I do have a previous rupture betweeen C6-C7 that I got back in january of 1997, which has been over 7 years ago and comparing this xray to the last one that I had, it looks much better now.
Anyway, I regained most of my strength within the first month I took off (I took 2 months off from work and just relaxed for most of it) and then by the end of the second month the pain was gone and I felt fine and could do everything normally again.

I went back to work and within a couple weeks it has started to come back. It is just tingling now, pretty much all of the time, but I am doing my best to let it relax.

I have been going though this problem for the past few months and cannot figure it out. I have been to the ER and my family practitioner so far. I have had xrays of my neck and shoulder taken and I have had an MRI of my shoulder.

The problem always seems to start with my trapezius getting extremely tight to where it limits my movement of my neck and then it progresses to this tingling in my shoulder, which seems to be isolated in the rotator cuff area (supraspinatus and infraspinatus), bicep, deltoid, tricep and trapezius. There is always that constant tightness of the trapezius though.

I am going to see an orthopedic surgeon on tuesday that specializes in neck and shoulder injuries so I am hoping that he can figure something out. If not, I plan on going to see a neurologist to see if they can figure it out.

I am leaning towards a pinched nerve now. I seem to be doing a very good job at eliminating other possibilities thus far, but it is getting very annoying and I would like some professional input on this, or even some input from somone who has ever had something like this.

I am tired of hurting and I want to go back to work and make some money, but that seems to be hard with this condition.

Sorry for the long post, but that is about as short as I could make it and still get pretty much everything I needed to say out there.

Find a new trade that does not require lifting ect.!

RSI in that type of trade is very high unfortunately. I have a friend that is a carpenter who suffers regularly with muscular problems over the right neck and shoulder areas. He goes to see a masseuse a couple of times a weeks, which he says has done wonders since. Maybe a possibility for a short terms solution.

I have considered the masseuse, but I need to be making money in order to do that, and that isnt exactly happening for me much at the moment. This injury has definately set me back a few months and I am just scraping by right now.

This is my first time hearing of RSI though. Did some research and have come to the conclusion that it could definately be that. I was doing a lot of hammering nails into concrete floors when this started, and that is pretty brutal on the shoulder at times.

One thing that I forgot to add into the original post is that I also have an 8th cervical vertebrae. I did not know that until I got the last xrays done of my neck. Not sure it that matters in this though.

I have/had a ruture at C6-C7 also. I can almost guarantee that all your problems are related to the rupture and or some other pinching of the nerve root. When my disk ruptured, I also had extreme weakness in the arm. I would push the doctors to focus on the nerves. Tingling and numbness are a sure sign of nerve irritation. You say you've only had X-rays of the neck. My X-ray didn't show much. You really need to get an MRI of your neck.

That is good to know. This is seeming to be a difficult problem to pinpoint, but I am hoping that we can figure it out for sure now that I get to see a specialist.I am actually hoping that the orthopedic doctor sends me in for an MRI of the neck so that I at least know exactly what is going on in there.Just exactly how long did it take you to rehab from the injury when you found out that your problem was your ruptured disk and what did you have to go through to fix it (therapy, surgury, meds, etc)?

It took several months to recover from the initial rupture. I am not recovered in the sense that I can't nor ever will be able to lift anything too heavy without "feeling" it the next day or two. I saw 3 doctors 2 basically said to leave it alone and it should get better. One wanted to fuse my vertebre. I chose to ignore his advise. Like I said, I'm ok except when I do any heavy lifting, then I get aches, pains cramps and numbness. At least it's an excuse to not have to do any heavy work. In your case... well you very well may need to have a career change.

Yeah, when I ruptured my disk back in 1997 (snowboarding accident) it ended up taking a good 6 months to recover to the point where I could do everything normally again except look up, but then that even eventually healed up and the only difference I had since then was that I was not able to turn my head to crack my neck anymore, which isnt even a big deal.Since the injury, I have hired some help to do all the lifting so I can just concentrate on installing. While that helps out a lot I still am unsure of what my immediate future will hold. It is going to be very dependant on what the orthopedic doc finds out.I do like my job a lot. I own the company and the freedom in doing so is great, but there is a chance that this may effect my career significantly. I would like to keep doing what I am doing, especially since I have made some major changes in the way I work that is preventative to bodily injury, but I just dont know. Guess next week will be the determining factor.Just the fact that this came out of nowhere, 7 years after my ruptured disk and the only things that could've contributed to it was the fact that I was working way too much and way too hard because my helper ended up leaving the company for a while.I am really hoping for it to be something that time will heal. It is just a matter of giving my body the time it needs to recouperate from this that is hard right now...Thanks for the reply. It is too bad that the human body can be such a fragile thing...