Andie is a 40 year old female, who presented to me at my clinic. On presentation Andie was nervous and timid as it was her first visit to an osteopath. She presented with pain over the right shoulder and pins and needles into the right hand. There were two reasons why this was impacting on her life, firstly her job entailed long hours at a computer; but more importantly she was a county darts player, training 3-4 times a week!

During the initial stages of the consultation, my initial thoughts were that this would be a relatively straight forward complaint, either a typical office worker problem or an overuse injury. However, Andie had explained to me that she experience a neck injury 9 years previously. At the time, she experienced nausea and dizziness, but this passed and no blackout was reported. Since this time, Andie has experienced episodes of paralysis (she couldn’t move!) in all four limbs on waking and also on one occasion when having her hair washed at the hairdressers, Andie described that “I could feel it coming on and had to ask them to stop”. She had been prescribed a neck collar by her G.P. which stopped these episodes. However, she has to wears this collar every night and it was making her depressed. At this stage no investigations had been carried out.

On recommendation, Andie returned to her G.P. to request an X-Ray of her neck. This confirmed no problems which would account for the symptoms she was experiencing. The results of the x-rays allowed me to proceed with very conservative treatment, which did not include treating her neck. After three treatments she reported improvement in her shoulder and the pins and needles had disappeared. Nevertheless, I was still very concerned about the symptoms from her fall. We discussed that an MRI scan would be necessary, to ensure no serious tissue damage was present from the neck injury nine years ago.

After liasing with her private medical insurers and referring her for an MRI, she was put under the care of a Neurologist who investigated her neck thoroughly. The scan showed noticeable changes in her spine, however, the neurologist didn’t feel this would cause Andie’s symptoms.

We continued treatment, focusing on improving the whole spinal movement and incorporated a muscle strengthening plan to take the pressure of the spine. After four months of treatment, I am pleased to say that Andie no longer requires the neck collar at night and keeps her shoulder problem at bay by performing stretching before and after her darts training. Most importantly it has improved her quality of life and she is now a much happier person.

To read more about neck problems be click below:

Neck Injury