Not looking for advice! Seeing doctors and following orders! But help me understand why what seems like nerve problem in my shoulder and neck is getting addressed as purely a shoulder problem by the shoulder guy and purely a spine problem by the spine guy. I want to ask better questions!
So, I have neck and shoulder pain. My C-spine is kind of ugly. I had an anterior fusion of C5-6-7 and significant damage both to my spinal cord and my nerve roots, particularly on the same side as my problem shoulder. I had serious muscle weakness but it improved after the fusion. My C4-5 joint is ugly too, and a candidate for an artificial disk.
But the shoulder is bad too, and they just found quite bad atrophy of one of the shoulder muscles, indicating it has no innervation. There were too many names flying around and I didn’t take notes so I’m not sure which one, but am certain it wasn’t the deltoid. I think it was the teres minor. Now the mystery is why this is going on - maybe quadrilateral space syndrome, but no tumors visible on MRI, no history of injury, no overhead sports, so that seems like a stretch.
In reading up on things I learn the teres minor is served by roots through C5 and C6, where I had lots of damage. But the spine guy has always said the shoulder issues are probably unrelated and now the shoulder guy says the problem is likely in the brachial plexus (downstream of the nerve roots) and not a neck issue. It seems to me the evidence only shows that there is a problem somewhere along this wire, and both docs are only looking at the part of the wire in their neighborhood and ignoring the other side.
So, what I want is to understand the whole situation better, and turn up some useful questions to ask the nerve doctor who I will see for the first time in a couple of days when he does an EMG on me. I figure he’s not wedded to the shoulder or the neck, and is all about nerves, and an excellent person to ask.
Thanks for any insights!