Your upper arm pain comes from somewhere else

[?] Subscribe To This Site

Firstly, left upper arm pain: your heart ?

If you've never had this pain before, right or left upper arm pain needs very urgent medical assessment.
Arm pain may be the only indication of a heart attack.

Nerve arm pain - equally as unlikely as the heart.

A nerve pinched in your neck can cause very nasty arm pain, with burning, searing or electric shock like quality.

This is likely to be due to disc prolapse or foraminal stenosis.

Shingles is always possible. The same type of pain as above comes 4 days before the characteristic rash.

Referred joint and muscle arm pain - the majority

Nearly all upper arm pain causes are found in the shoulder, neck and upper back.
There is seldom much wrong in the arm, apart from tender spasm in Brachialis muscle.

The muscles causing the pain can be found by pressing around in the neck, shoulder blade and shoulder itself.
Treatment is nearly always prolonged stretching until the muscle relaxes, often by just continuing the same pressure that found the tender spot.
The exact techniques are described in the pages on each area.

Very unusual : Brachioradial pruritus (BRP)

This is an intense itch rather than pain, on the outer parts of the arm which got the most sun damage over the years.

Itch and pain are sensations with similar nerve mechanisms and sometimes common causes.

This particular itch often comes from a joint in the neck, but protection from the sun has apparently also helped in some people.

A particular "hemi syndrome" with leg and arm pain

One of my first teachers of physical medicine at RMH, was Dr. Joseph Silver Collings¹. He recognized this as coming from damage to the cervical spine.

When people complain of leg and arm pain on the same side, I look to their neck first and usually find the cause. The reason for such a pattern of referral is not usually obvious.

Checking your shoulder blade muscles

Checking your neck muscles

From upper arm pain page back to home page

From upper arm pain page to elbow page

Notes for upper arm pain page

1. Dr. Joseph Silver Collings, born in Sydney 1918, and educated at the University of Sydney. After graduating with degrees in agricultural science and medicine, he later became a research fellow in the Harvard School of Public Health, and, on secondment to the Nuffield Trust in Great Britain, undertook a review of British general practice.
In 1952, in the United States, Collings was Assistant Medical Director of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York. He was also engaged as a consultant to President Truman's Commission on Health Needs of the Nation in 1952.
He was Head of the Department of Physical Medicine at Royal Melbourne Hospital when I was taught by him. He died in February 1971.

His full orbituary was published in the Medical Journal of Australia on June 19th 1971. It is a wonderful read, with contributions by several medicos and a barrister who dealt with him...

"It is gratifying to read the appraisals of his achievements in England and America in the accompanying notices from Sir Theodore Fox and Professor Milton Roemer. Both of these distinguished men write with obvious feeling for the triumphs against a background of frustration and often bitter attack.
Joe Collings achievements in his own country will prove to be no less remarkable when they are reviewed ten years from now. His contributions to the understanding and care of the injured worker, particularly those with spinal injuries, bore fruit for the individual patients who came under his care during the ten years between 1961 and his premature death in 1971. By giving evidence tirelessly on their behalf in the Victorian courts, he helped to change attitudes towards those with spinal injuries - emphasizing the social disasters that beset many of them and their families, and stressing the need for adequate compensation and rehabilitation."

SBI!

Search

Is there something else you would like to read about?
This search button will bring up anywhere on this site your words are mentioned...

Custom Search

Contact

The contact page.