[entropy]

#19634

Hi Dr Corenman,

My symptomatology is long, but I will make this as brief as possible to explain the situation.

I’m a 23 year old male who has been suffering with these problems for 3.5 years now with no resolve.

3.5 years ago I started getting these brain jerks just before slipping away into sleep. They appear to be a form of “hypnic jerks”, and made sleep impossible. Shortly after this I started to notice a constant deep ache in my left scapular-thoracic area.

In a few months the scapular-thoracic pain had worsened and I started to develop a constant amount of snapping and popping in that area that could be triggered from simply sitting and breathing. Eventually the snapping, popping, and pain spread like a band over the corresponding left side of body and into the left chest. There was noticable rib protrusion on the left side and the general diagnosis was that I had ligament laxity in at least one rib between t2-t4. Also known as “slipping rib syndrome”. Eventually the left shoulder started to sit higher than the right side — so the shoulders were uneven now.

Throughout the next year and a half the pain and areas of snapping seemed to only grow greater around those areas. The hypnic jerks also came in waves accompanied by restless leg syndrome and leg numbness and leg tingling. Any form of exercise, bending, osteopathy, chiropractic manipulation, massage, or anything that even touched my back would exacerbate all those neurological issues and the pain, greatly.

I eventually sought out prolotherapy and after 10 sessions saw maybe a 15% improvement. Afterwards, my prolotherapist urged that I consider my neck to be a factor in this and ordered me a DMX. I believe it showed some minor c1 and c6 instability — either way I recieved prolotherapy in my entire neck from occiput to c7. I believe the solution used was Zinc Sulfate with the addition of PRP.

The night of the neck prolotherapy I remember getting a huge electrical shock sensation in my throat when I was trying to sleep. It happened once and never again. Two weeks later I started noticing my hands were tremoring in a dentist appointment and my body felt as if it was in a state of shock. My neck was slowly getting stiffer and stiffer as well at this time where I couldnt rotate more than 50% of what I normally could — soreness accompanied it as well.

About 2 weeks later I began feeling incredibly weak, sick, sleeping 16 hrs straight per day, and falling asleep/passing out even when sitting upright. Additionally, I started having extreme short term memory loss, severe cognitive decline, inability to read or think properly. Also, I developed all of the symptoms one would experience from extremely low testosterone levels. Furthermore, my body started being in a constant vegetative-shock state where my entire body and mind would feel as if it were lightly tingling and heavily sedated — I’d pretty much just stare at things for hours or read the same sentence over and over for an hour trying to remember it. Constant feelings of anxiety, feelings of intense fear, unexplained anger, and symptoms mimicking substance withdrawl were present as well — heart palpatations and that intense claustrophobia-irritability-like feeling.

Following this, a month later the base of my skull started getting deep and painful snapping, grinding, and popping sound just like my back had. The snapping at times felt as high as half way up my head. Additioanally, any rotation would cause constant grinding during the motion as well. The more snapping occured the more the previous neck symptoms mentioned would worsen.

Months later I started to also develop facial swelling, burning and constant red eyes, sensitivty to noise, ear popping, hoarse voice, inability to tolerate sun light, tightening of facial muscles around the eyes when in sunlight, and hair loss — I was now told I had C1 instability and/or Barre-Lieou Syndrome.

To date the only thing that alleviates the neck almost almost completely but temporarily is lying down and putting my head on a pillow so that it cannot move and the weight of the head is removed from the spine. As far as the back goes, the underlying issue (slipping rib) is still present. Cracking and slipping, while not as bad as a few years ago is still present. This has caused my left scapula to permanently wing. And despite all efforts from physio doesnt seem to be seeing improvments due the underlying rib causing alot of pain from the simplest of exercises, as well as seemingly preventing the scupla from fixing/realigning.

Needless to say, with both my back and neck issues my quality of life is non existant. And even something as simple as writing this post to you was performed with great mental difficulty.

I am just wondering if you had any advice on my situation?

I should also note that I used to be a natural bodybuilder and was not, and am not, on any forms of medication or substances.

[Pete073]

#27780

Hey Entropy,

Hope all is well! I was wondering if you were able to figure out what was causing your issues.

I am in a similar situation.

Thanks, be well.

[Donald Corenman, MD, DC]

#27792

Your head jerks more likely are from either propriospinal myoclonus or from Hypnic jerks. “Propriospinal myoclonus at sleep onset consists of flexion or extension jerks in the abdomen, trunk and/or neck during relaxed wakefulness and drowsiness, as an individual attempts to fall asleep”. “Hypnic jerks are a common example of simple sleep-related movements. They consist of a sudden, brief jerk of the whole body or one or more segments at sleep onset, often associated with the sense of falling. Hyping jerks can occur at any age and are a benign phenomenon, sometimes related to sleep deprivation or excessive caffeine or other stimulant intake”.

Your report; “In a few months the scapular-thoracic pain had worsened and I started to develop a constant amount of snapping and popping in that area that could be triggered from simply sitting and breathing. Eventually the snapping, popping, and pain spread like a band over the corresponding left side of body and into the left chest” sounds like scapulaothoracic bursitis or “snapping scapulae syndrome”. This syndrome is not uncommon but commonly misidentified. My partner, Dr. Peter Millet is well known to treat this problem arthroscopically.

Neck and shoulder prolotherapy is not what I recommend. I am sure you are aware that prolotherapy is the injection of a damaging or injurious fluid into joints, tendons or muscles to get what the therapist calls a “healing response” but is really formation of scar tissue when the normal tissue is injured. You might have injury to your neck structure that is now causing your continued neck symptoms.

Your symptoms; “I began feeling incredibly weak, sick, sleeping 16 hrs straight per day, and falling asleep/passing out even when sitting upright. Additionally, I started having extreme short term memory loss, severe cognitive decline, inability to read or think properly. Also, I developed all of the symptoms one would experience from extremely low testosterone levels” certainly could be from thyroid, sugar disorders (diabetes) or even Lyme disease. You need a good internist to carefully evaluate you to determine if metabolic disorders are present.

Dr. Corenman

PLEASE REMEMBER, THIS FORUM IS MEANT TO PROVIDE GENERAL INFORMATION ON SPINE ANATOMY, CONDITIONS AND TREATMENTS. TO GET AN ACCURATE DIAGNOSIS, YOU MUST VISIT A QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL IN PERSON.
 
Donald Corenman, MD, DC is a highly-regarded spine surgeon, considered an expert in the area of neck and back pain. Trained as both a Medical Doctor and Doctor of Chiropractic, Dr. Corenman earned academic appointments as Clinical Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and his research on spine surgery and rehabilitation has resulted in the publication of multiple peer-reviewed articles and two books.

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