Hand And Arm Tingling With MS

A few nights ago I was massaging my wife's back and started working her shoulder blade area. She has been holding a lot of tension in her shoulders and after a lot of stress, her shoulders were aching. So, I was trying to relieve some of that stress when I started to work the outside of her shoulder blade. My wife immediately commented how sore that area was from the bottom of the shoulder blade up into the armpit area. After working that area for a few minutes she started to notice that her hand and arm started to "wake up". She knew that her arm and hand had been heavy with some tingling, but hadn't known the extent of it.

A few years ago my hand started to go numb. I would feel pain up the back of my arm and all the way down to my fingers. I tried all sorts of treatments and only found relief from a massage therapist that worked the same area that I massaged on my wife. The pain that I felt was intense, but my hand and arm quit hurting and the numbness went away. I had been that way for months and had come to the point where I was adjusting to the pain and numb feeling. The massage therapist knew her job well and was able to immediatley identify what the problem was and how to fix it. She had me hold my arm in different positions while she put pressure on key areas on the outside of my shoulder blade and up around the back of my armpit area. I understood very quickly why they called her massage room the torture chamber.

With my wife, massage has to be gentle and within her pain parameters. Her Multiple Sclerosis definately affects her feelings of pain and causes her to be more sensative. I think it really surprised her that the feeling in her hand and arm was affected as much as it was by the massage. After seeing the affects of MS on my wife for the last 14+ years, it never ceases to amaze me how her numbness and pain can be helped or alleviated with bodywork and chiropractic. MS has caused numb hands, numb arms and numbness in almost every other bodypart at one time or another in my wife's life, but she has always been able to recover the feeling after the issues. We continue to find ways to help her body recoup from the nerve and muscle issues and are always open to learning more about how her body works and how it can heal itself.