Good evening Doctor,
My name is David , and my wife is the one I am contacting you on her behalf, she is not fluent in English. She is 37 years old, has one 4 year old child. Lives in metro Atlanta Georgia area.
She has extreme pain through her body, and extreme headaches, pain in her neck and shoulder mussels, pain in front of her head and back of her head. It started 5 months ago. She never had such pain in her life. She used to get Migraine headaches in the past but it only would last 2 days and usually over counter medication will take care of it.
The head pain she has now no medication helps it.
Nothing in particular trigged this pain, no car accident or anything we can pin point to what started it.
The pain is in her neck, shoulders and front and back of her head. At times she feels like her neck is cut by an Ax and the Ax is stuck in her neck, she says like I want someone to pull it out.
Then she feels like a rod has gone through her head from one ear going across to the other ear.
He mussel on her shoulder will suddenly stiffen and bulge in a lump causing her extreme pain. She gets some relief from a message therapist but few hours later she is back in pain.
Hot treatment helps little but not much,
Cold treatment does not help.
Both of her arms and hand get numb very quickly with any movement even brushing her hair.
She has this extreme pains continues for 5 months.
She has seen 3 neurologists, 2 spine specialists, 2 chiropractors, 2 pain center for epidural shots, 1 Message therapist and 1 physical therapist.
She has been in emergency room 8 times through the 5 months for pain sedation.
She had MRI, MRA, MRV.
She had several blood test done all look good, her throyid results are good, blood pressure, sugar levels and vital signs are good.
Only the MRI showed a moderate-size herniated disc protrusion measuring 5 x 10 mm in size compressing the cord.
One spine doctor said this should not cause the pains she is experiencing.
Another said it did and she should have decompression of her neck and work with a physical therapist.
All neurologist suggested swimming and physical therapy. But swimming made her neck pain worse.
One Neurologist said I given you all pain medication, none works and suggested to try holistic treatments (Acupuncture, chiropractic, yoga, exercise, or physical therapy).
Lastly the physical therapist said it’s not a disk problem, it’s a Mussel issue and we should see a mussel specialist.
What is a Mussel specialist?
What do you suggest she should do?