Phoenix Arm and Neck Pain Treatment Options

If you are experiencing shoulder, arm, or neck pain, it may be time to see a doctor who can provide the guidance you need to feel better.
Schedule a consultation with Dr. Baig to discuss your arm and neck pain today.

How to relieve arm and neck pain

Despite all the advances medical science has made in recent years with regard to understanding the causes of pain and trauma, we still struggle at times to fully understand what’s happening when someone suffers from ongoing neck and arm pain. This is especially so if there was no real trauma inflicted on those parts of the body that a person can remember.

Too many people simply start experiencing this pain and do not know why, and far too many people in this position decide to just live with it. If you’re one of these people or someone you love is enduring this type of daily life, you need to seek treatment from neck and spine specialists in Phoenix as soon as possible. The reason? There are solutions out there!

You may be wondering what type of doctor treats neck pain, and the answer is that there can be more than one depending on the type of problem that exists with a patient. At Desert Spine and Scoliosis Center, we focus on the spine and all that can happen when a problem arises with the proverbial “control panel” of the central nervous system. Many people who seek a neck and arm pain specialist do so because of a problem with their spinal cord.

Below you’re going to find a breakdown of neck and arm pain in hopes that if you’re suffering in this regard, you’ll take the simple step necessary to obtain the neck pain treatment in Phoenix that you may need. That step is to contact us to schedule an initial consultation.

Diagnosing Neck and Arm Pain

One of the most common symptoms presenting to our orthopedic spine surgeons at DSSC is neck and arm pain. Some causes for these symptoms are discussed below:

There are several common causes of symptoms occurring in the neck and arm at the same time. These symptoms may include

• Pain
• Numbness
• Tingling
• Weakness

which might occur in any combination. When considering shoulder and neck pain with arm symptoms occurring at the same time, it is useful to consider three categories of potential causes:

Radicular Pain Referral

( Cervical Radiculopathy ): Neck pain with radicular pain in the shoulder, arm and/or hand is often the result of compression of a spinal nerve in the neck. Spinal nerves leave the cervical spine (neck) to enter the arm as nerves. Thus, when a nerve is compressed in the neck, it can cause radiating pain in various regions of the shoulder and/or arm. The pattern and distribution of these symptoms can often be deciphered and isolated to a particular nerve in the neck by physical examination by a trained specialist.

Myogenic/Soft Tissue

This type of pain is often harder to diagnose. Soft Tissue pain syndromes, while quite common, are underappreciated by conventional medicine. This type of pain is caused by tiny clusters of adhesions (scar tissue) that accumulate in and around the soft tissues (muscles, ligaments, tendons) of the spine and adjacent structures. This causes pain and restriction with the movement of the neck and/or arm.

A particular type of tissue called fascia is often to blame. While often debilitating, this pain is often easier to treat and rarely if ever requires surgery.

Common Cause of Neck and Arm Pain

One of the common causes of severe, radiating, neck and arm pain is a herniated cervical disc. Most herniated discs are due to normal, age-related deterioration of the spine, but sometimes something happens that causes a disc to herniate. Trauma to the spine, heavy lifting, or sudden twisting movements (such as when golfing) can cause a disc to spontaneously herniate.

In cases where the patient is suffering from a herniated disc, they will often report a fairly long history of mild-moderate neck pain that suddenly enters the arm (as the disc herniates and makes contact with one or more nerves in the neck.)

When to See a Specialist: Treatment for Neck, Shoulder, and Arm Pain

By the descriptions above, it is easy to see that neck and arm pain is not a clear-cut entity. The first step in treating neck and arm pain is to identify what is causing the symptoms. This can be achieved by an orthopedic spine specialist evaluating you and your current symptoms

This evaluation will start with gathering a thorough history of when your symptoms first began and how long you’ve been experiencing them, along with what you have already tried to get a better idea of what may be going on. This will be followed by a physical examination with spine specific tests which will aim to identify patterns of sensory loss, weakness, or reflex changes that may implicate a particular nerve or group of nerves in the neck. This evaluation will also include review of your current imaging studies, to better assess what is happening on the inside.

Once this information is studied by your spine surgeon, he will recommend the best course of action to resolve your neck, shoulder and arm pain. This might involve conservative therapy measures such as over the counter or prescribed pain medication, physical therapy, chiropractic care, or a pain management specialist who can do spinal injections. The decision to recommend spine surgery will be determined when conservative measures have failed, or if there is a greater risk to your spinal cord in which permanent damage can occur.

Desert Spine and Scoliosis Center offers quality orthopedic spine care and spine surgery for patients living in the metro Phoenix area, including areas such as Tempe, Gilbert, Chandler, Scottsdale, Goodyear, Casa Grande and Queen Creek.

Please contact our office as soon as possible to schedule an initial consultation so that we can start to get to the bottom of what’s happening with you.