Change The Arms, Change The Neck

First assessment

Here's another patient who came in to our clinic complaining of neck pain, tingling, and sensations of electric currents/ pins and needles, down his left arm.

This patient works as an electrician and often has to be in awkward positions running electrical wires. He feels worse after prolonged time spent looking upwards - mostly due to running ceiling electrical wires.

He was referred to our clinic by another friend who had seen us and gotten better without needing surgery as suggesting by his surgeon.

Just like the other lady who had neck pain, I didn't treat his neck. Just treated his arms and shoulder girdle.

Have a look at the picture after treatment.

After treatment

You can see quite an dramatic change not only in his neck but in his rib cage and hips too. Even his nephew who came with him was amazed at the change.

Before and after

Have a look when I put both pictures together above. Quite a big difference? All done in less than an hour.

What did I do? No mobilizations or manipulations of the thoracic and cervical spine at all. Just treating the arm lines as seen in the picture below except for levator scapulae. Left that out as I wanted to "exclude" the neck.

Superficial and deep back, front arm lines

Not The Neck, Not The Leg, But The Arms

This patient who came in recently this week complaining of neck pain, was a really interesting case.

She had pain in the cervical spine (neck) area with numbness and tingling sensations radiating down to her right arm and thumb. Sleeping on her right side made the pain worse.

Remember I had written about my patient with neck pain and I made her better by treating her leg. Well, this particular patient's presentation was definitely different.

This patient of mine lives on a yacht in the One 15 Marina Sentosa Cove. Recently it's been raining and she's had to work a lot harder cleaning her yacht so there won't be stains. Because of the proximity of the refinery nearby, whenever it rains it makes their yacht very dirty. Her husband cleans the hull, and she needs to polish the silicone joints.

She had also seen the spine surgeon and he sent her for an MRI just to be sure. Here's the whatsapp message I received from the doctor telling me my patient had R spinal exit stenosis from prolapsed discs in her neck.

That was a big clue for me as her neck didn't didn't seem particularly "bad" upon palpation. Her upper limb tension tests elicited some tenderness as well.

Superficial and deep front, back arm lines

So I treated her arm lines instead of treating her neck. Yes, at no point did I treat her neck, just her arms and nothing else.

When she sat up, her first comment was "it's like a whole weight have been lifted off my shoulders".

Surprised? I was, but I was hoping for a good result since she told me about all the extra cleaning she did earlier. Treating her arms was key in her case, not her neck.