I’ve been the subject of many medical tests in the last year to hopefully identify the cause behind why the nerve in my arm is sending pain messages to my head. So far, no luck.

Yesterday I got the results of the latest test, which they were hoping would confirm one theory as to the cause. Nope, healthy. I’m actually very very healthy, aside from the fact that I take about 10 pain pills every day ;)

Anyway, thus far I’ve hat a CT Scan, MRI, EMG, SSEP, Ultrasound, bloodwork, 2 Xrays and I cannot remember what else. It’s been a year, or just over, since it started. What a year!

So the result as of right now is that I am healthy and they have no idea what the cause of the pain is. The last and only hypothesis they have remaining is that my nervous system is misfiring and they don’t know enough about how to fix that, or even diagnose it. If there is another cause, they’ve yet to find it.

They’re referring me to yet another specialist (I’ve seen more than half a dozen already), this time a vascular surgeon. I suppose they are considering operating just to see if they can identify or fix something in the shoulder region. No idea yet.

While physiotherapy made some improvement, it did lead me to suspect that something musculatory was part of the problem. However, so far they have not mentioned anything muscular to me, nor have they suggested treating the region of tense muscles that surround my shoulder and neck. Truth be told, the only ones really feeling around in that area are physiotherapists – for the most part, doctors have not been “hands on” with their exams, except as it pertains to my arm.

Yes, Canada has free health care. And, thank goodness, since I’m costing our country a fortune. That being said, it makes the treatment and identification of my medical mystery quite laborious. The waiting lists are horrible, and it takes weeks to get results. The system seems to work on a very linear basis – you see one specialist at a time, get the test, get the results, then move on. You don’t sign up for all the tests at once, which would have been way faster and better. And the specialists, for the most part, don’t really talk to each other to share ideas. One specialist actually told me he didn’t have any more ideas and to basically go away. Nice treatment, hey?

So, I’ll keep updating as I have news. I am told the waiting list for the vascular surgeon is quite long, so don’t expect anything soon.