Hello family and friends, I have been having a lot of problems with my right arm. It has been something that has bothered me for years. Since the middle of January this year, I started to have worsening symptoms in my arm. I have incredibly painful dull achy pains that shoot from my shoulder down to my fingers. My arm will go numb from my elbow to my fingers. I have really bad weakness in my arm and am prone to dropping things that I grip with my hand. I also get a pins and needles sensation from the elbow to the fingers. I had to stop working and driving. I started to really find a doctor that would listen to me. I finally found an amazing team in Seattle. I was referred to Dr. Yu, who is a pain specialist. He first wanted to start with my lower back since I already had a recent MRI done on it. I was having shooting pain from my lower back down into my legs. He found that I had Moderate arthritis and ended up burning off six of the nerves in my lower back. It worked so well. I'll have to have that done every 16 months since the nerves will grow back. He wanted to know what area I wanted to work on next and I said my "coat hanger" area. He put in an order for an MRI and I had that done at the end of July. Two days after I had it done, I got a message from Dr. Yu wanting me to come in asap to talk about what was found. Yesterday, Andy and I drove up to see him. He showed us the MRI and to say it was disappointing was an understatement. He said it was not good. Here is the breakdown of the damage. 1. The first four vertebrae in my back a black. That means they are dehydrated and I have moderate degenerative disk disease. I will need to have those operated on at a later date but that was not his major concern at this time. 2. Each vertebra in the spine has two tube-like structures on both sides. One is small, the other large. The small one is for nerves to leave the spine and go to the more localized area of the body. The small one on the left side of my fourth vertebrae is moderately enclosed and is causing me pain in my left shoulder. Again, not something that he was worried about at this time. He said that we could probably just do the same nerve burning that we did in my lower back to help with the pain in the future. 3. My fifth vertebra on the right side has severe narrowing of the large tube for the nerves to leave the spine. Those nerves go to my arm. This is the one that he said needs immediate treatment. There are also bone spurs that have developed on the vertebrae that are also putting pressure on the nerve bundle. The probability of having permanent nerve damage grows every day that it is not treated. He has put in for a nerve induction test to see how bad the damage is, a cortisone shot directly into the narrowing canal to see if that help with the inflammation, and a referral to a neural specialist. Dr. Yu told me that I will most likely need to have surgery to relieve the pressure so I don't lose the use of my arm. 4. I also have severe osteoarthritis in my fifth and sixth vertebrae. He said that is something they might work on when they do surgery for the nerve issues. Needless to say, this was not the news I was wanting to hear. Luckily this should be the last visit to Seattle for doctor appointments for a while. The specialist I'm being referred to is in the Tri-Cities. Dr. Yu said I can get the test and shot done here also. Now I'm just waiting for the referral to go thru insurance. At this point, I am still not able to work. I have been out of work since the end of January. It has been hard on my mental health. I have used up all of my savings and FMLA funds I received. I was trying to get back to work since I really liked my job. But it took so long to get the state paperwork in order due to my former doctor being a total knob. I ended up losing my job since they had already waited almost two months for all the paperwork they needed to hold my position. I'm putting up a go fund me to help with my bills and medications that insurance will not cover. Andy has been helping me out with all that but it is putting a major strain on him and I hate it. We could also use help with ready-to-cook meals. There are a lot of days that I can't cook due to the pain. We have found meals that take minimal effort but some days I can't even do those. I will also need help with getting to doctors appointments. Once I meet with the new Doctor and have a better idea of what will happen next I will update my page. Please let me know if you can/want to help out in any way.
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