explain
pain
section
3
page
66
What youmight notice with peripheral
nerve problems
I
njured peripheral nerves can result in a wide variety of
sensations. Thanks tomodern neuroscience, most of these
seemingly odd sensations are no longer amystery. Many
common syndromes such as tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis
and carpal tunnel syndrome are likely to involve peripheral
nerves.
Common symptoms associatedwith peripheral
nerve problems
101
What sort of symptoms could there be?
•
Pins and needles
•
Sometimes burning pain
•
Pain at night when you are in bed, especially in the
hands and feet
Where would the symptoms be?
•
In ‘skin zones’ or part of the skin supplied by the
damaged nerve
•
Small, tender ‘hot spots’ (may be called ‘trigger points’)
What elsemight you notice?
•
Movement oftenmakes it worse. Nerves aremore
comfortable in some positions than in others. When a
nerve is sensitive, you tend to favour postures that avoid
puttingmechanical load on the affected nerve, eg. by
raising your shoulder up, bending your spine sideways
or poking your head forward.
•
As inmost persistent pains, stress canmake it worse –
remember that nerves, especially damaged ones, can
become sensitive to the chemicals you produce when you
are stressed. This can be a bit of a vicious cycle. The
brain concludes that you are under threat by virtue of
this ‘unexplained’ pain, whichmakes you produce stress
chemicals, which activate the chemical sensors, which
fire dangermessages, which tell the brain you are under
threat, and so on...
•
‘Zings’. Without warning, when youmove, a quick ‘zing’
may occur.
95
It doesn’t necessarily happen every time you
move. Suchunpredictability can lift the fear factor.
113
•
Movement or even just a sustained posturemay ignite an
injured nerve which keeps ringing like a car alarm. This
is probably due to DRG involvement
95
but it can be really
disturbing because it just keeps on ringing.
