Birthday Girl - what a pain in the neck

Well I turn 45 today! Yes 1st November and it's the exact day of the week that I was born. Which is bizarre! And something stranger it's Mr Myasthenia Kids birthday tomorrow. So we have two days of celebrations, eating things we shouldn't and having a few glasses of pop.

This week has been odd as I started getting pins and needles really badly in my wrists, hands, fingers, legs and face. It's so bad on my left wrist that I just can't wear a watch because this seems to irritate the nerve. Annoying as I love my watch. Jay bought it for my 41st birthday and I really do love it. 

Initially I scared myself stupid by consulting Dr Google, what came up was a mixture of M.S and anxiety. Yes I am stressed but I was anxious or hyperventilating. So that left M.S but having calmed down a little I actually think the problem is stemming from my neck. I have lost the curve in my neck - to be honest I don't think I have ever had one. A chiropractor I consulted due to back problems when I was around 16 took x-rays of my neck and said he had never seen such a straight neck. He said it was swan like. Me being vain took that as a compliment, not realising that a straight neck is a major problem and will provide you with no end of painful problems, which I have suffered with on and off since the age of 16 when I pulled a roll cage onto the shop floor at work that was way too heavy for me. I felt compelled to do it as the checkout manager ( a real nasty piece of work and a bully) stood shouting at me until I moved it. Excuse the language but my neck has been fucked up ever since.

It didn't help that two years later my car broke down whilst I was driving in the pissing down rain, my dad ever the bloody gentleman made me get out and push it whilst he steered it into a safer location. With the road being wet I slipped and managed to sprain my neck. It was absolutely superb timing literally days before my A-level exams took place ( the exams we need to take in England and Wales to get into University, in Scotland they take Highers). I ended up having to sit through 3 hour exams with a neck brace on high as a kite on painkillers. I was given a desk at the back of the room so that I could get up and move around if I needed to. I never did, it was embarrassing enough that I had to wear a neck brace let alone draw attention to myself by moving around in a silent exam room.

A few years later and I am university and guess what? Yep my neck is causing me an enormous amount of pain. I was diagnosed with "student neck" probably now known as Text neck. It's caused by looking down and in my case reading mountains of set texts, these days its caused by looking down at a mobile phone (cell phone) or a computer screen. I paid out a load of money to have my neck manipulated to ease the pain.

And that is how life was for years, the last really bad period with my neck was back in 2000 around a month after our wedding and possibly a few years after that. I know I have had to attend work on quite a few occasions wearing a soft collar.

In 2016 I had an MRI to see if they could "see" my CSF leak. On the radiographers report it stated I had reversed cervical lordosis - what this means is that it now bend in my neck is bending the wrong way This link has a great x-ray image that shows a neck with the bend going the wrong way - here . 

The problem is the neck is probably the worst designed  load bearing  area of the body. The head weighs up to around 10lbs so the vertebrae, muscles and ligaments have to spend every waking hour keeping a bowling ball up against the force of gravity. Also the neck contains the spinal cord and at the very base of the skull your brainstem is encased. So anything that messes with your neck can leave you in serious hot water. A break which impacts the spinal cord at this level could mean you end up totally paralysed and unable to breathe for yourself. You'd think something so vitally important would have been designed just a little better. 

I saw my gp in July and told her that I was getting increasing amounts of pins and needles in my hands and arms. I also told her I was getting an increasing amount of pain in my neck and base of my skull. As my mum had just  been diagnosed with  "probably" cancer, I was informed by the gp that the pain and numbness was stress. This diagnosis was reached without any physical examination. Had they bothered to examine me they would have noted that I have pain from the base of my skull down to between my shoulder-blades. This pain limits me doing anything sat down at a table, using my arms . Anything at all where my head maybe held in a tilted down position.

I ended up having to have a break from sewing as the minute I sat at my machine the pain in my shoulder-blade would start. I started using a tens machine on a regular basis. I got the pain under control. As long as I took a break every 15 minutes and checked my posture I could manage the pain.

Then as the pain had gone away I started sewing again, in fact quite a bit more, when I was able to. Now as soon as I sit down at my machine the pain starts. If I hold my mobile phone (cell) the pain starts. On Sunday I was chatting with a friend, nowhere near my sewing machine or mobile phone and I started to get a burning pain in my left wrist and fingers. I knew it was nerve pain and I assumed ( wrongly it was due to being deficient in B12). After she left I dosed myself up on B12 and hoped that the pain would be gone by the following day. It wasn't. It was now down both arms and in my face. I was so frightened by it that I rang the duty dr at my gp surgery.

I must  have blood tests and go in and see them towards the end of November. The doctor thinks it maybe a nutritional deficiency, thyroid or electrolyte imbalance. After having a good think about it for the past 24 hours I am pretty sure its my neck. I get some relief when wearing a neck collar.

So today my birthday will be quite a quiet affair. Spent with hubby and friends. Alcohol will be consumed mainly as a muscle relaxant in the hope I can spend the day without being in constant pain and the nerve pain in my left wrist not driving me mad!