Back and shoulder pain

miles71 · Mar 17, 2014

So a while back I was diagnosed with a bad disk in my lower back. Recently I started to get the same pain in my upper back and shoulder area right near my neck. I am at the point where medication is doing ok and don't want surgery. Dr says I should excercise and it will help. Cool, I get a bow and have been shooting it. Woke up this morning and my neck and shoulders hurt like a mother. I'm confused since excercise was supposed to help.

Anyone else have issue like this?

TD

Robert · Mar 17, 2014

Did you ask your Dr. what kind of exercises to do?

MaxVO2 · Mar 17, 2014

miles71 said:
So a while back I was diagnosed with a bad disk in my lower back. Recently I started to get the same pain in my upper back and shoulder area right near my neck. I am at the point where medication is doing ok and don't want surgery. Dr says I should excercise and it will help. Cool, I get a bow and have been shooting it. Woke up this morning and my neck and shoulders hurt like a mother. I'm confused since excercise was supposed to help.

Anyone else have issue like this?

TD

*****You need to have your doctor or other health care professional give you more appropriate exercises for your condition. If you just recently got your bow it may be possible you simply have delayed onset muscle soreness from doing a new activity, but the issue with your back may be related to other kinetic chain issues, including your diagnosed lower back problem.

Many people tend to have movement impairment issues related to their work or hobbies that can be a contributing or causative factor to their aches and pains. Postural issues related to slumping shoulders or forward head posture can cause one to overuse the upper traps, the levator scapulae, and the sternocleidomastoid, along with other muscles related to stabilizing the shoulder, upper back, and neck. Using a bow for exercise, even with good form, will tend to use different muscles on each side of your body due to the very nature of the activity, and could potentially exacerbate the condition in your back or cause other aches and pains, etc..

Again, please speak with your doctor with respect to what is appropriate activity, or spend some time with a physical therapist or other movement/rehab professional to help manage your back condition.

zoostation · Mar 17, 2014

miles71 said:
So a while back I was diagnosed with a bad disk in my lower back. Recently I started to get the same pain in my upper back and shoulder area right near my neck. I am at the point where medication is doing ok and don't want surgery. Dr says I should excercise and it will help. Cool, I get a bow and have been shooting it. Woke up this morning and my neck and shoulders hurt like a mother. I'm confused since excercise was supposed to help.

Anyone else have issue like this?

TD

I have a problem thoracic disk and have also had a two level C-section fusion in my neck (C5-C7).

I would make sure you are thoroughly checked out with x-rays. A compressed disk in your neck can cause shoulder pain as well as neck pain. When I had mine all I had was shoulder pain that felt for all the world like bursitis (and was diagnosed as such), when in fact it was the disk pushing down on a nerve.

If you have problems with one part of the spine, you may have problems with more, since they all depend on each other.

Good news is there is lots of therapy available now and disk surgery is usually not too bad if you do need it.

TheBert · Mar 17, 2014

miles71 said:
So a while back I was diagnosed with a bad disk in my lower back. Recently I started to get the same pain in my upper back and shoulder area right near my neck. I am at the point where medication is doing ok and don't want surgery. Dr says I should excercise and it will help. Cool, I get a bow and have been shooting it. Woke up this morning and my neck and shoulders hurt like a mother. I'm confused since excercise was supposed to help.

Anyone else have issue like this?

TD

I had a massive herniation of the L5/S1 disk which caused CES "repaired." I still have residual issues. All they really did was to remove the herniated disk protruding outside the boundary of the vertebrae.

I have lots of osteo arthritis in my neck. Every time I move my head I hear crunching in my neck. Depending upon how my left arm is placed it can go numb. I am not looking forward to anyone cutting on my neck.

Yellowhand · Mar 17, 2014

You might consider Chiropractic as an alternative to poisonous medication and invasive surgeries. It works for many...

zoostation · Mar 17, 2014

Yellowhand said:
You might consider Chiropractic as an alternative to poisonous medication and invasive surgeries. It works for many...

Meh, I've had back/neck problems most of my life and chiro never did a thing for me except help me feel better for ten minutes, cost me money, and give me an excuse to put off the surgery I truly needed. I do think it can help with minor problems or things in their very early stages. Physical therapy is different though, that I had success with and believe in, if appropriate.

Everyone is different, that was just my experience.

miles71 · Mar 17, 2014

I have a call into my doctor. I have already gone to him about the issue. Been through X-rays and was told nothing was seen. I think I need a specialists name this time.

Maybe I'm just that out of shape :sad20:

zoostation · Mar 17, 2014

miles71 said:
I have a call into my doctor. I have already gone to him about the issue. Been through X-rays and was told nothing was seen. I think I need a specialists name this time.

Maybe I'm just that out of shape

Just fyi Dr. Rami has an office in Abingdon off 924 near the sports center. He was my doctor and did my C-spine fusion. I did a lot of research before I selected a doctor. He's part of that GBMC Spine Center with Reggie Davis and I think myself and other members here will tell you they are about the best there is.

Second Amendment · Mar 17, 2014

Yellowhand said:
You might consider Chiropractic as an alternative to poisonous medication and invasive surgeries. It works for many...

...And I'm one of them. :thumbsup:

montoya32 · Mar 17, 2014

I have two bulging disks in my lower back and some very uncomfortable issues with my upper back and neck to the point I cannot take a full breath most of the time. Exercise does help some. I like to do bench press and row exercises as well as jog as much as possible. Sit ups will help some too. I did get my nerves burned about 2 years ago and that was beautiful. 0 pain after that, but I know feel it coming back and I also take Cymbalta daily for the back pain, but it is still there, just not as back. I cannot remember the last time I had no pain. It sucks, but like doesn't stop for pain.

sbmike · Mar 17, 2014

This isn't for everyone but I got into Yoga a couple of years ago and while I didn't do it specifically for back pain, much to my surprise, I have been pretty much pain-free for the past year or so. The only thing I can attribute it to is the Yoga.

I had been advised by my doctor that surgery was probably going to be the only way to alleviate the issue but I'm glad I didn't go through with it. Things may change over time but for the moment, I'm happy with the Yoga solution over anything else.

cww · Mar 17, 2014

even people without back issues that try shooting a bow for the first time feel pain in places where they didn't expect it. The muscles used to pull a bow back are not the same ones you use every day believe it or not. I recently had two grown healthy men try me back up bow set at 64 lb and they couldn't do it and when they finally got it back and shot a few times they were sore. There are proper and specific exercises for back issues, use them - yoga is a good place to start.

dbledoc · Mar 17, 2014

The wrong exercises can make you worse.
Here are some links for some back and shoulder exercises you can start with.

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00302

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00067

A good source for information

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/menus/spine.cfm

IANAL but I am an orthopaedic surgeon...

wilcam47 · Mar 17, 2014

also get checked for lyme disease...may be un-diagnosed.

Pulling a bow does use different muscles and can cause soreness.

md_rick_o · Mar 17, 2014

I have multiple bulging discs (above and below my C5-6 fusion from 2001) and my dr recommended an epidural about 6 months ago so i got one. I did just have a second one last week and they work for me.

BigDaddy · Mar 17, 2014

Steroids can abort an attack but they work better if you take them as soon as possible. Narcotics only just barely take the edge off. Taking more than prescribed not only doesn't work, but makes you tolerant. There are pain specialists that will not get you addicted and are able to do injections that may help without the trauma and side effects of surgery.

My neck has hurt so badly I have had to hold my head with both hands to get out of bed. Not surprisingly, my lower back is not damn good either. Physical therapy is good. Chiropracters, people love them or hate them. I have done manipulations under anesthesia with chiropracters. Some I would go to and some scare the hell out of me.

It won't take long to find a surgeon that will tell you that you need surgery. At first they give you a 95% cure rate. Second surgery is 75%, third the rate falls to 50%. After that some will continue to operate and most will label you a "failed back" as if it is your fault that surgery didn't work.

Weakness is a definite reason to have surgery. Numbness can come back, but it takes months. Pain is subjective, but g damn, it can hurt like an sob.

Physical conditioning, exercise, posture and and even emotional status all play a role. If you have upper and lower spine pain, then think of it as a disease of your entire spine. It is not like having a splinter in your finger and one in your toe. You have problems, which you are not yet aware, all along your spine.

miles71 · Mar 17, 2014

Few years ago the first disk was found L5/s1 area. 8mil bulge. Got two of the three steroid shots, which put me in the hospital. Didn't worry about the third. Went to a chiropractor for about a year, he made me feel worse. Best thing I did was stop worrying about it, but here we are.

My lower back occasionally bothers me.
Tightness in my leg, shooting pain in lower back down leg. Up until now some meds and relaxation have done the trick. In about the last 8 months I have felt the "leg pain" in my arm, but not to badly. My neck would stiffen up and my right shoulder blade area would hurt. Like I had said, I thought shooting a bow again would he'll with some exercise. I really hope I can still keep shooting the bow, my dad and I used to shot when I was younger and I invested in a nice mission bow. I have remembered how much I enjoyed it and how many times I got to spend with my father shooting at bottle caps on a bale of hay.

Feel a bit better today, guess we shall see.

TD

BigDaddy · Mar 17, 2014

There is more to the differential diagnosis. My neck pain radiated to my left shoulder.

If you are over 50 you are at risk for a rotator cuff tear. The pain wakes you up at night and is intense but different than pain originating in your neck. You lose ability to raise your arm up over your head. There is not much neck pain, at least for me.

I have all of the above and developed biceps tendonitis in my other shoulder. It hurt worse than the rotator cuff and I was not sure if it was my neck or shoulder. I may have had some neck problems at the same time because I slept on extra pillows to be able to sleep on my left side. MRI showed the tendonitis and adhesive capsulits (frozen shoulder) It wasn't the worst adhesive capsulitis I have ever seen but my ability to raise it up 45 degrees and back was very limited. Home exercises have helped a lot.

Back and shoulder pain

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