From Spinal Stenosis to Tendonitis

In a previous post, called From MS to Spinal Stenosis, I described how three neurologists told my wife that she had MS before they finally ordered MRIs and noticed the narrowing of her C5-C6 vertebre. This ultimately led to the diagnosis of Stenosis.

The last neurologist referred us to a neurosurgeon who pointed out the narrowing in the MRIs and said that there's a good chance surgery would eliminate the bi-lateral arm pain she was experiencing.

We went to another doctor for a second opinion, a highly-regarded neurosurgeon. He looked at the same MRIs and examined / interviewed my wife. His conclusion was that the narrowing was not significant enough to account for the problem. At best, surgery would have a 25% chance of relieving the pain. His opinion made sense to us because my wife has no neck pain, and significant narrowing of the spinal column would certainly cause neck pain. (Also, his waiting room was way more crowded than the first.) But he did recommend that we get an EMG test (Electromyogram).

Taking a different tack, we went to an Interventional Radiologist who dealt a little with pain management. At this point, we were starting to suspect that this had nothing at all to do with the spine, and that it was a more severe case of Tendonitis in both shoulders, with pain radiating down into the arms. This Radiologist injected the more severe shoulder with a steroid, which actually helped.

But this isn't the last round of musical diagnoses....