Cervical Radiculopathy symptoms can range from mild tingling and numbness to significant pain that radiates from your neck into the arm, hand and even the shoulder. In many cases, these symptoms are not severe enough to interfere with everyday activities, but in others, they can make it hard to do the things you want to do.
Symptoms of cervical radiculopathy can vary widely, depending on the nerve root that is affected. For example, a pinched nerve in the middle of the spine can cause numbness and tingling in your arms or hands. On the other hand, a pinched nerve in your lower back can cause numbness and tingling that extends from your buttocks to your legs.
In most cases, a radiculopathy can be diagnosed by your healthcare provider based on your symptoms. This includes examining your neck and arm movement, asking you to perform certain movements that may trigger your symptoms and reviewing your history of neck pain or injury.
Your health care provider can also use certain imaging tests to help diagnose a radiculopathy, such as X-rays and MRI. These tests will let your health care provider see the structures inside of your body, including herniated discs and compressed nerve roots.
A herniated disc or degenerative spondylosis that causes foraminal narrowing can compress and irritate the exiting nerve roots of your spinal cord, which is called your radicula. Your health care provider will be able to see these problems on X-rays or MRI scans of your spine, and they can also test for nerve compression by examining the electromyogram.
Nerve compression can also occur as a result of bone spurs that form around the exiting nerve roots of your spinal cord. These bony growths are called osteophytes and they can cause inflammation of the nerve root.
This can make the pain, numbness or weakness you feel worse, or can cause the symptoms to get better with treatment. In some cases, a brief period of immobilization in a cervical collar or traction therapy at home can temporarily relieve your symptoms.
Other common treatments include rest, ice, heat, massage and physical therapy. The combination of these therapies can help relieve your numbness and tingling, and they may also reduce your risk for developing future cervical radiculopathy.
Some of the symptoms you can expect from cervical radiculopathy are neck pain, numbness and tingling in the neck and arms, a loss of coordination and muscle weakness. If you have these symptoms, contact your healthcare provider right away.
MRI can help your health care provider see the location of your radicula and whether they are pressing on your spinal cord or nerve root. It can also determine the exact nerve root that is involved, and it can show other soft tissue abnormalities, such as bone spurs.
Computed tomography (CT) can be useful for diagnosing injuries that can cause radiculopathy symptoms, but it is not always accurate outside of the ER setting. During the ER setting, CT scans can be helpful in determining what caused your radiculopathy and in identifying if it is getting better or worse.
