UKC

I am desperate for some help please. For as long as I've known her Mrs has been plagued by pain in her neck and shoulders. It is possibly arthritis as a consequence of whiplash years ago. Anyway I feel now that it is affecting our quality of life. She has tried massage,osteopathy etc. If I tell her to go to Dr she responds by saying "Oh what's he going to do other that give me paracetamol?"

However my belief is that the Dr needs to be told that it is affecting quality of life and needs some sort of LONG TERM resolution. There must be something that can be done to alleviate this.

Can anyone PLEASE help/advise?

In reply to mypyrex:

If it's arthritis there are other arthritis therapies that can help better than paracetamol. She needs to go to the doc. May be you go with her to make sure she doesn't undersell her pain (doesn't want to cause a fuss?)

In reply to lynda:
Thanks. Part of the problem is persuading HER to visit the Dr and press the point

In reply to mypyrex:
Obviously I can't comment beyond very general things without knowing the ins and outs of what the background to this is but:

1. If the problem is related to structural joint issue such as arthritis in the shoulder then an orthopaedic surgeon is the speciality to consult

2. If on the other hand it is a structural issue in the neck leading to nerve compression (e.g. disk protrusion), it is the neurosurgeon

3. Quite often though, there may not be a structural issue to be solved surgically, especially if the pain has been persistent for a number of years. If this is the case a referral to a chronic pain specialist might be of use, as a combination of medication and other interventions (e.g. injections, physiotherapy etc.) may help alleviate symptoms.

All of the above can be accessed through the GP so there is benefit in visiting them on that front.

Hope this is useful

In reply to mypyrex:

Could you go to the GP with her, for support and to make sure she isn't fobbed off and doesn't understate her problem?

GPs vary from awful to great, and aren't likely to be able to help much directly with this anyway - but they are the obvious way of getting referred on to the specialist(s) who can help.

In reply to mypyrex:

Agree with most of the above. She needs to get it properly diagnosed - if it is arthritis there's a lot that can be done to rehab and manage the pain (even just getting a decent NSAID prescription should make an immediate improvement) and if it turns out to be a chronic soft tissue problem then it can be fixed by correcting the imbalances that are causing it.

Be careful talking to surgeons though - when you possess a finely crafted hammer every problem can start to look like a nail. She'll probably have to go through one to get the MRI scans, I find it's best to approach them with a "you're not getting near me with a knife unless you can convince me it's the last option" mentality. You can always go back and get the surgery later, you can't go back and try the conservative option.

I'm assuming NHS so investigations may take a while... in the meantime you mentioned trying massage and osteopathy, has she tried yoga? Gently mobilising the spine daily can help reduce symptoms in the short term as well as help correct imbalances in the longer term.

Also, do you climb together, and if so do you use belay glasses?

In reply to mypyrex:
Given her current attitude, do some background checks on her own GP before getting an appointment. Are they sympathetic to patients with pain or not, particularly in relation to her age and other personal circumstances, for example?. If need be ask for a different GP if you feel she will not be listened to sympathetically. She wants to be encouraged to firstly go to the GP and then try possible treatments.

Without knowing what is the cause, can't even start to suggest what could be done, although there are many many other things than painkillers that maybe possibilities from my experience.

Consider going with her to an appointment as it maybe easier for her to feel supported?

In reply to mypyrex:

Next time she asks "what's the doctor going to do?" be ready with a series of links like this:

http://www.spine-health.com/conditions/arthritis/non-surgical-osteoarthriti...

and make her sit down and read them until she decides a visit to the doctors will be less hassle than listening to you ranting

In reply to skog:

It's a matter of persuading her to go in the first place. As I said, when I've mentioned seeing the GP she usually says "All he'll do is tell me to take paracetamol"

I think she needs to look upon the GP as the first step.

In reply to mypyrex:



Yup. And - as suggested by others above - if this is really what the GP says, see a better GP.

In reply to skog:

I don't think that the problem lies with the GP; just that the Mrs doesn't say "Look, this is ruining our lives. We need a long term solution"

I've found our docs are quite good. Certainly, the way the dealt with me earlier this year gave me no cause for concern.

In reply to mypyrex:

Book her an appointment, then take her out "shopping" and pop-in on the way?

In reply to mypyrex:
You might encourage her to keep a diary for a month or two to show both herself and the GP how its affecting her? It might even pick out some patterns you hadn't spotted before and stop her underselling the problem.

I had persistent joint pains years ago and got decent help after GP referral. From waking up in the night with awful pain and no clue of the cause I now have a diagnosis, see the symptoms coming and rarely need the anti-inflammatories - live pretty normally. I've run ultras, could bike 100 miles tomorrow without too much trouble, regularly race fells, climb to an ok standard, etc. Which isn't bragging - just saying it might well be fixable.

In reply to mypyrex:
Gently encouraging her to talk further, to try and understand her resistance to getting help, is the first step; without that things are, sadly, probably going nowhere.

In reply to mypyrex:


I would recommend a good chiropractor, but probably best to get a referral from your doctor to find a good one

did wonders for my neck, though not a "cure" the treatment helped me to learn to maintain it

I can now turn my head another 20 degrees which does help while cycling

In reply to Ciro:

Surprised by that comment about surgery being favoured. My experience is that due to the cost the NHS does anything it can to avoid the knife.

Neil

In reply to mypyrex:

has she tried McKinsey exercises as here?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Treat-Your-Own-Neck-803-5/dp/0987650416

obviously would be best to find a good physio or similar that has experience but the book should be good too

See the reviews; is also relevant to long standing whiplash

I can recommend from personal experience

BR

Peter

In reply to All:
RESULT!

Firstly thanks to all for useful comments and suggestions. Secondly, Mrs was in such pain this afternoon that I grabbed the opportunity. I told her that she was to make an appointment to see the GP and that she was to lay it on thick that she could not endure the pain and that it was detracting from our quality of life. Sure enough, I got the usual but then, after I said that if she was persistent about it she might at least get a referral she picked up the phone and made an appointment.

In reply to mypyrex:

Good. Hopefully this will get things moving towards finding ways to help her.

In reply to Neil Williams:

Hmmm, yeah my experience may have been coloured by the fact that I had private medical insurance when I worked in the city.

In reply to yeti:


any doctor that refers a patient to a chiropractor should be investigated at the very least or struck off at best.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

why does the law allow them to practice then?

I have only the experience of visiting one, and it helped...

In reply to yeti:

I have thought about this in regard to a number of "therapies/treatments" such as distance healing and crystal therapy etc. I think that it remains legal because the people offering it actually believe in what they are providing and the purchasers are considered to have capacity to make their own choices. If it could be proven that a "healer" was really cynically expoiting people, then I imagine the law could do something about it.

In reply to tmawer:

so... have you ever visited a chiropractor?

I'm with you on crystals, distance healing etc

I'm not convinced about acupuncture but I know people who say it works...