Cervical and thoracic pain spine anyone?

[Brychni]

This has been bad on and off for many years and started in the back of my neck, long before the word arthritis entered my lexicon. It comes and goes like all the other pains and just like the others it gets a little bit worse every time and particularly bad at the moment.

It feels inflamed, hot, pinching, stinging, bruised and achy. When my husband rubs it he says there are hot areas. It's in the same spot, one particular vertebra I suppose.

Does anyone else have this? It makes everything really stiff and seems to happen at the same time as the ribcage thing making it difficult to take a deep breath comfortably and move around in bed. Even sitting down to watch TV feels hard to keep my head up and I always feel the urge to lied down.

I'm aware that RA in particular does not affect the spine, so what the hell is it? Is there any point in telling the rheum nurse? Or GP?

[LinaM]

I had an episode of agonising pain between my front ribs below left shoulder . I was on holiday at the time and thought I was having a heart attack . Mr google suggested costochondritis but I should’ve seen a doctor and would have if I hadn’t been in a cruise ship at the time. It went away in a couple of days and hasn’t happened again. But I definitely think you should seek proper advice x

[Brychni in reply to LinaM]

Hi L - yes I know that one! Had that too, thought I was having a heart attack. This is directly in the spine. In fact I have just been looking at it with 2 mirrors and there are 2 vertebrae which are prominent - the ones that hurt.

[LinaM in reply to Brychni]

Oh that sounds nasty ! Hope it calms down soon x

[TPaine]

Hi I suffer with neck issues too alongside RA and I had a really bad time with it not that long ago and it did send all the muscles into spasm and then they all locked down.. this affected my neck, shoulder and upper half of abdomen on the left side and very tender ribs. GP felt this was down to the disc issues in my neck and we started me on amitriptyline and some short term diazepam. I struggled to walk, sit and even laying down at first was tricky. Maybe what you are experiencing is similar and sound like it needs investigating so you can then get access to some treatment for this... a medic to diagnose and prescribe would be a good option but you could also see an osteopath for their thoughts. Sounds very painful for you.. I am much better managed now but still get symptoms from time to time and it always affects my ribs shoulder and neck so I then need to take extra meds alongside the amitriptyline and do gentle stretching and self massage with a fascia ball that I use to get in the shoulder blades (osteopath recommended this alongside her treatment at the time), but I checked all of this plan with my GP first to make sure I wasn't planning to do anything detrimental.

I hope things improve for you.

[Brychni in reply to TPaine]

Hi TPaine, yes I have some problems at the other end too in sacrum and coccyx. I have times when I can't sit comfortably and the times when I find it hard to keep my head up, if that makes sense. I've got a lot of stiffness and pain in my neck but I have had it for years and so I am used to it although it is getting worse.

[Wyaatch in reply to Brychni]

Hi..I found out by going to a spine specialist that restricted muscles in my legs, discomfort when sitting around the hip area, can be caused by your upper neck area which you say is stiff…they can take an mri, sometimes an X-ray to see if there’s a nerve involved because of lack of space..I started with RA doc but if they don’t offer, ask for a referral to a spine specialist…I added a spinal surgeon on the next time…and on his advice got an cray and sm waiting 3 month as he wants to see how it goes..my bones are too thin for surgury..now…the screws wouldn’t hold he said…so be assertive…I wanted a second opinion as the first RA referral was for pain management..steroid shot…I thought no..I want to be sure this won’t make me worse…so the spinal doc and surgeon were way more in the know…good luck! ( I finally did not just put up with it…first fracture I had, the doc said nothing you can do and gave me pain pills which I cut in half..zero mention of osteoporosis…So I lost time… Google if you have to…

[BoneyC]

RA has affected my spine. I had cervical myelopathy in 2002 when C3 had subluxed onto C4. This resulted in lots of neurological symptoms which GP missed but I asked to be referred to a private neurologist who instantly recognised the problem and I had a laminoplasty and fixation of C3-C6 2 weeks later.

I have to say, although I recognised the symptoms as neurological (thought MS) I had no idea the problem was in my neck and surprisingly little pain. I would urge you to seek your doctor's advice as better to be safe than sorry.

[Brychni in reply to BoneyC]

Hi BoneyC my pain yesterday was horrendous - see below - were you told that it was related to RA?

[BoneyC in reply to Brychni]

sorry you are in pain. I was told it was attributed to RA (dx. 1971 age 6) by 2002, I'd had it for 31 years. My atlanto axial pivotal joint had already fused and reduced movement in my neck.

[Marionfromhappydays]

Yeah I get all of these, the mtx made them go away 😁

How are you getting on with it ?

[Brychni in reply to Marionfromhappydays]

Still no side effects, thank God. Migraines are pretty bad at the moment but I think this latest crop is because of the pain in my spine and neck which, like the leg and foot pain from a few weeks ago was off the scale yesterday.

I really don't know what to do. I had my fortnightly blood test this morning and asked the nurse if I should report this to rheumatology or make an appointment with the GP. She said GP who she arranged to call me tomorrow morning with a view to a face to face appointment. I have googled and googled and can't find any evidence that RD causes spine pain which is why I am hesitant to call rheumatology. The pain is in my sternum too and slightly lower in my spine if I twist it even slightly. There are 2 tender areas. Yesterday was vile. It was the first time I spent the whole day in my pyjamas, didn't go out for the family dog walk, didn't sit down to supper. went to bed at about 7, my head bad so I got my husband to give me sumatriptan injection (OK this morning so it worked well) and fell asleep. Back pain remained and is still awful today. It makes me sweat sometimes.

I am still losing weight, slowly but steadily, I'm eating more, doing my strengthening exercises.

What's the latest with you? How is it with the MTX? x

[Marionfromhappydays]

Axal spondylitis is a type of autoimmune arthritis and I think alot of the inflammatory arthritis symptoms can overlap a bit.

I think we have very similar symptoms and when I told my consultant about my back, neck and rib pain she wasn't surprised at all. I've got an initial diagnosis of inflammatory arthritis, I don't think the Dr wants to pigeon hole me at the moment but its definitely part of the arthritis, ive never had anything like this before.

My blood test came back a little abnormal for kideny funtion, nothing terrible; Due to migraines (which have now gone) I'm going to try mtx again but at a reduced dose but if migraines return I'm to stop taking it.

The mtx was working for me so I hope the reduced dose works too. Thing is we don't know until we try do we x

Hopefully the mtx will kick in for you and help your inflammation xx

[Brychni]

Hi M - our symptoms do seem to be very similar. Hearing this is encouraging as perhaps it will all go once the mtx starts to take effect. I suppose I am worried about damage too.

did you stop mtx for a while?