Pain in Back and Down Arm

[MikeyMike]

I'll try to keep this as short as possible folks so please bear with me;

Earlier this year I was deployed to Afghanistan, one morning in May, I awoke with a stiff neck, the kind of irritating inconvenience we all experience from time time. Usually after a day or two the pain subsides, however, this time the pain has remained and got much worse.

Initially my symptoms were a stiff painful neck, and pain around the left shoulder balde however my symptoms have developed and are now as follows:

Stiff neck limiting movement and pain and tightness around the left shoulderblade.

Persistant aching/stabbing pain in shoulder joint

Pain down left arm, again aching and stabbing pain in bicep, triceps and forearm.

Stabbing pain in back of left hand, appears to be directly linked to movements of the neck.

Minor muscular spasms in left arm, twice I've dropped objects as a result of these sudden losses of control.

I've lost alot of strength in my left arm, my main form of exercise is weightlifting, I cant even manage a press up right now.

So far I've seen 2 doctors and one physio regarding this. The first doctor told me she believed it's a trapped nerve caused by inflamation of a muscle, and told me to rest. She referred me to the physio who didn't think it was a trapped nerve, but pain referal again as a result of an inflamed muscle. He told me to continue weight training but to use lighter loads and gave me some stretches.

So after initially going with the physios advice and keeping active I found that actually the pain was getting worse. So for the last month I've completely stayed away from the weights bay and taken ibuprofen regularly.....guess what, its still getting worse. I saw another quack who said that she think my lower trapezius is inflamed and trapping a nerve, she gave me cocodamol which did help but that was it.

I'm at my wits end now. I literally cannot sleep because of the pain. I have another appointment this week, and I'm going to insist on having imaging of the area to get to the bottom of this, being the MoD and can see them refusing and just palming me off with additional physio. I'm out of the service in January and I really need this to be resolved by then.

I guess what I want to know is, has anybody had the same symptoms, and if so how did you treat them? I think I'm just looking for a bit of advice from those who have "been there" so to speak.

Cheers,