What Causes Shoulder And Arm Pain With Tingling Feeling In Fingers?

Posted on Thu, 10 Dec 2015

Question: First I had a burning sensation on my forearm, that went away, now I have the same thing with my left shoulder and arm and my little finger and ring finger will tingle. It does get painful at times. I was diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis. Are these nerves that are causing problems? This is an intermittent problem. I sleep in a chair because of my back.

Answered by Dr. Nishad BN (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Most likely due to radiculopathy.

Detailed Answer:
Hi

Thank you for asking HCM.

I have gone through your query. Your problem can be most likely radiculopathy due to nerve compression from Spondylolisthesis. A MRI of cervical spine will be helpful to find the exact location of it. Conservative treatment can be initially tried.

Wearing cervical collars and cervical traction will be helpful to some extent. NSAIDs like ibuprofen and muscle relaxants like Tizanidine or Cyclobenzaprine will be helpful to relieve the symptoms. Neurotropic drugs like Pregabalin and neuro vitamins like B12 will be helpful to relieve the neuropathic symptoms like tingling also. Other than NSAID ibuprofen all are prescription medicines. You can ask your doctor for prescription. A consultation with an orthopedician dealing with spine or neurologist is well appreciated.

Physiotherapy like TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) and infrared therapy is helpful also. A consultation with a physiotherapist will be helpful to carry out these. Use cervical orthopedic pillows while sleeping. Also sleep on hard mattress.

If there is no improvement with all these conservative measures then you can go for surgical correction.

Hope this may help you. Let me know if anything not clear.
Thanks.

Note: For further queries, consult a joint and bone specialist, an Orthopaedic surgeon. Book a Call now.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Yogesh D