hello Everyone,

this week in my musculo outpatients placement i saw a patient for the first time who, after assessing her i found out had a C5 nerve irritation so she had decreased ROM in her arm. She is only able to lift her arm 60 degrees in abduction and flexion before bringing on extreme pain. This was an incidious onset and she is very concerned as to why this has happened. She has a long history (20+years) of neck problems and therefore does not like anyone touching her neck. ( which makes it difficult to do an objective assessment). After my initial assessment i told her that the likely cause of her pain was her nerve, so I gave her some suggestions on ways not to irritate the nerve (avoiding overhand activities, supporting her arm with a pillow at night to unload it). She seemed fine with the suggestions and went on her way. i say her again at the end of the week only to have her come back worse then before!! She said she tried the pillow and woke up with so much pain that she couldn't go back to sleep. She seemed quite annoyed at the fact that she had not seen any change in her symptoms in four days. I explained to her again that her nerve was irritated and that it takes a while for the pain to go away. She then asked me what was the point in coming to physio then. Well, I was a bit stumped becuase I really had no idea how to treat nerve irritation. She would not let me work on her neck to open up the joint space so I was out of ideas. My supervisor suggested taping the shoulder to unload it. We tried that and it seemed to relieve her pain a bit. She is due back into the clinic on tuesday. Any suggestions on treatment ideas I can try with her??