Pinched Nerve in Neck - Symptoms

The symptoms of Pinched Nerve in Neck chiefly constitute a nerve under pressure or its function is impaired causing pain.

Generally, this occurs to nerves that relay sensations to the brain or control muscle movements. Numbness, burning sensation or tingling are the common symptoms of a pinched nerve. Severe pain down the buttocks and legs, shoulders, arms and fingers, or in the neck can also indicate pinched nerves.

At times, the pain and sensations can also occur at points distant from the point of pressure. A pinched nerve in the low back for example can cause the calf having pain as the only symptom. Pain and weakness will tend to increase with nerve damage from constant pressure. Loss of reflexes, movement skills, and lack of sensation in the affected area or withering of the affected muscles can also occur. It is necessary to learn a bit on the character of nerves, before we go further into the symptoms of Pinched Nerve in Neck.

What are Nerves?

Extensions from the brain reaching out into the arms or legs on its way to the muscles or skin are called nerves. The size of a nerve is microscopic and is characterized as a cell. The fibers of a nerve may run several feet in length before reaching its final destination. The central nerve is a nerve cell that resides in the brain or within the spinal cord. Peripheral nerves are nerves that leave the spine on its way into the arms or legs. The millions of nerve fibers bundled together, leaving the spinal cord and moving to their target muscles to make them move, or going to the skin to provide them feeling, make up the peripheral nerves.

What happens when a nerve is pinched?

Nerves are like hoses. Therefore, when a nerve is pinched, the flow up and down inside the hose is blocked or reduced causing a stoppage in the flow of nutrients. In turn, the membrane begins to loose its ability to transmit tiny electrical charges leading to eventual death of the nerve fiber. With more and more fibers ceasing to function, the skin tends to feel numb and muscles fail to contract.

Causes of a Pinched Nerve

The most common causes of pinched nerves in the spine can include herniated discs, degenerative discs or bulging disc disease. Compression of a nerve at the elbow or wrist , a cramped posture for prolonged durations, bone spurs, arthritis, a tumor or job injury are the other possible causes.

More symptoms of Pinched Nerve in Neck

 Herniated disc, bone spurs and spinal arthritis can cause a nerve to be pinched as it leaves the neck or the back. With a pinched nerve in the low back, usually, pain is perceived as flowing down the leg. When the pinched nerve is in the neck, pain starts from the neck, and runs through the shoulders, down the arms and into the hands. Pinched nerves can also be accompanied by muscle spasms in the back causing weakness in the arm or leg. Two of the most common pinched nerves occurring in the lower back are Lumbar 5 and Sacral 1.

Treatment of Pinched Nerve

Generally, open back surgery involving hospital stays and long recuperation time not excluding high risks is recommended for treatment of pinched nerve. However, Laser Spine Institute advocates a minimally invasive and outpatient surgery with the assistance of Laser technology capable of correcting the causes of a pinched nerve and relieving the patient from the painful symptoms. In this process, the herniated disc pressing against a nerve is removed. By removing or at times shrinking the disc or disc material responsible for the nerve to be impinged with the laser, the spinal cord or nerve root that is being impinged is decompressed. With the removal of excess disc material, the symptoms of a pinched nerve in neck disappear in most cases.

Other ways to search for pinched nerve in neck are:
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