Donald Corenman, MD, DC
Moderator
Post count: 8656

I assume your symptoms are bilaterally equal (left arm equals right arm). The way to understand how symptoms are generated is to look at what is present in the examination and imaging and compare to what symptoms would be expected by the imaging. Your symptoms are diffuse. A herniated disc at C5-6 left would cause left neck, posterior shoulder and arm pain radiating to the thumb side of the hand, made worse with bending the head back or to the left and improved with right bending. It would not cause right arm pain.

The C2-3 protrusion I assume is not compressing the spinal cord as that would be very unusual. This disc should cause no symptoms other that upper neck pain and occasionally headaches.

The reversal of the cervical curve is normally a result of degenerative disc disease or antalgia (pain from positioning). It is not a cause of symptoms by itself.

If your symptoms are so diffuse, you could have a condition like polymyalgia rheumatica or fibromyalgia but normally fibromyalgia has leg symptoms too. It is a possibility that you have diffuse degenerative disc disease in the neck causing significant neck pain and you are developing somatization syndrome.

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.