Pain in left hand, upper back and left foot.

[WorryRaptor]

This is baffling me. For the past month, I've had on and off pain in my left hand and left foot. Sometimes it's just my hand, and some of my lower arm, but most of the time it goes into my left foot too. Along with this, there's a spot deep in my upper back that feels achy. It's almost like a torn muscle I can't reach. I know one spot on the spine can't effect two whole limbs at the same time, so I'm terrified it's my heart, or something nasty growing in my brain.

My GP said they're not concerned anything is from my heart as they ran a 7 day ECG on me two years ago, and ECG's before that have always been fine too.

For the past three years, I've had many strange sensations like weakness and sometimes a numb feeling, even in my jaw, all on the left side. Now it seems like those sensations have turned into genuine pain. A deep, sharp ache that comes and goes. Sometimes I feel like I've pulled something in my spine, other times it just comes on while I'm sitting still.

I asked my GP about the numbness and weakness but they just said that people feel strange things all the time. There was no answer. They said maybe a trapped nerve or something.

Because it's both my hand/arm AND leg, it's very unlikely to be a pinched nerve in the spine. Different sections of the spine deal with different levels in the body, so an arm, jaw and leg at the same time doesn't fit with that, unless I'm simultaneously irritating different part of my spine at exactly the same time. Brain MRI four years ago didn't show anything nasty in there, but a tumour might have formed after the fact, and now something up there is sending pain signals down my body. I really don't want to google any of this.

The pain comes on relatively quickly too. First it will be a dull ache in my wrist that spreads to my fingers, or up my arm. My jaw will sometimes ache a bit but I wonder if that's from tension when I feel the pain. Then my left foot and toes will ache too. Soon after that, my upper back will ache, and sometimes go through to my chest. I freak out that it's angina or something, but a clear ECG two years ago is satisfactory for my GP apparently.

It pretty much happens every day now, and I'm finding it really hard not to panic. GP isn't really listening as the previous weird numbness on one side was such a strange symptom, they seem to be attributing everything I feel to anxiety. I really hope this isn't some kind of tumour that is getting ignored.

Anybody else had actual pain in their left arm/hand/jaw AND leg/foot at the same time?

I'm completely at a loss here, and I'm not sure what to think.

[Careful1]

I have pains like this but I also have a decent amount of herniated discs in my neck and back. It is possible to have pinched nerves in more then one area at the same time and majority of your symptoms do sound nerve related. Sometimes we have pain and wonky symptoms and the doctors can’t find an answer for it.
Your symptoms aren’t heart related and they aren’t likely to be brain related either as they have gone on for some time now.

If you feel like your doctor isn’t doing enough to address your concerns see a different doctor for a second opinion but it’s highly unlikely that there is anything serious going on.

[WorryRaptor]

Thank you for your reply :)

I ended up calling up NHS 111 for guidance and they sent out an ambulance as my symptoms sounded cardiac in their evaluation questions. Well, the lovely ambulance people ran two ECG's which were fine. My blood pressure was very high, but they guessed that was white coat syndrome as it's usually pretty good.

They said they were happy that it wasn't my heart. One of them said it sounded neurological in nature and said the pattern of all my symptoms, over the timeframe was very like people who have progressive conditions like MS, hypermobility Ehlers Danlos or even fibromyalgia. I explained that I was hypermobile, but that my doctors won't look into it anymore and refuse to run the tests. The response wasn't one I was expecting. They said doctors don't understand hypermobility or Ehlers Danlos very well, so they will try any avoid it as much as possible as there's not much they can do for a patient other than give them pain relief. They told me to go in to my GP with extremely detailed notes and really push for them to investigate.

I've strongly suspected I have Ehlers Danlos for a long time, so hearing that was a mixture of sadness and relief. Relief its not my heart, but sadness that I might have to live with chronic pain. I'll take that if it means living a healthy life though!

[WorryRaptor]

Sigh. Just when I was relaxing a bit and just going with the flow, I starting getting freaked out that this might be my pancreas. The pain seems to be radiating from there sometimes too. Kind of like its behind the ribs and going through to my back and chest. Of course my mind has focused on pancreatic cancer. It seems to happening as soon as I start eating now. I heard that's a sign of pancreas issues.

I'm terrified its something bad like that. I recently had a full blood count and that was ok, or well I'm assuming it was ok because nobody called back. I would assume something would be off in my bloods if I had pancreatic c. I'd also guess that the pain would be there 24/7 without any relief if it was something like that. Mine is on and off, comes on suddenly like a lightening bolt, and then gradually fades over 2-5 hours. I hope eating isn't triggering it because it brings me back to pc. I'm 35 so I'd be very young to have that, but of course, we all know there are that unlucky few.

I've had some strange left abdominal pains for the past few months, but assumed it was just digestive stuff. I cant see my GP for another two weeks, so I feel like I'm going to freak out till then. I'm trying to stay calm and reasonable about this. Maybe it's just some weird nerve that keeps catching and my brain is making silly connections.

[Careful1]

Do you have your gallbladder? I had my gallbladder removed due to gallstones and when I would have an attack I would get pain behind my ribs, into my back and my chest. I know the gallbladder is on the right side but my pain was more in the center of my upper abdomen and chest and towards the end before I had it removed the pain was my whole upper abdomen and chest. The pain would start shortly after I ate and lasted a few hours but no one ever put two and two together so I suffered for a long time until my last attack had me screaming hysterical in the emergency room.

Not saying your pain is from your gallbladder just maybe something to consider.

[WorryRaptor]

Do you have your gallbladder? I had my gallbladder removed due to gallstones and when I would have an attack I would get pain behind my ribs, into my back and my chest. I know the gallbladder is on the right side but my pain was more in the center of my upper abdomen and chest and towards the end before I had it removed the pain was my whole upper abdomen and chest. The pain would start shortly after I ate and lasted a few hours but no one ever put two and two together so I suffered for a long time until my last attack had me screaming hysterical in the emergency room.

Not saying your pain is from your gallbladder just maybe something to consider.

Still have my gallbladder. That seemed to be ok last time they scanned it about two years ago. Glad they figured it out for you though. That sounds incredibly painful to endure :(

I cant quite pin down the pain I'm having. Sometimes it seems like it starts in my chest and goes into my back, then flares up in my hand and wrist and jaw. Then at other times its distinctly in my back by my left shoulder blade and spine and wrist/hand. It's so hard to believe it's not my heart when it happens, but two clean ECG's in the ambulance and the paramedic willing to bet her career on me not having cardiac problems should be enough to calm me down.

I'm not sure that eating is triggering it anymore. Just today, I was fine all day, then started to prepare dinner. I think I stooped to put something in the oven, and my RIGHT hand started aching so badly. I shook that off then got the familiar pain in my left chest and back, down my arm and into my wrist. Jaw started feeling like sharp shooting shocks were going through it. The whole thing faded within about 20 minutes and is now a mild ache. It's so confusing!

It's hard to remain calm about it, but I'm just waiting patiently for my GP appointment in a couple of weeks. I have to keep telling myself it's not my heart. Anything you ever hear or read about pain in the areas I've mentioned point straight to the heart.

I'm clinging onto the hope that it is referred pain from my back. Maybe something is bulging or herniated in my upper back and is causing all these issues. Odd that it comes out of nowhere can can either fade pretty quickly, or linger for half the day.

[WorryRaptor]

Thought I'd update this as I left it without resolution for anybody who comes across this!

I was recently diagnosed with hemiplegic migraines. The left sided symptoms started getting so much worse this year, so I finally got a referral to look into it, and from there, I was diagnosed. Part of the hemiplegic migraine symptoms can include one sided symptoms, which perfectly mimic a stroke. For me now, its my eye socket, nostril, jaw, hand, hip, and foot all on the left side, all at once. This can sometimes manifest as pain instead of numbness, which is what I was experiencing mostly when I wrote this post. Now when an attack happens, 99% of the time it's tingling and numbness instead of pain. The migraine attacks can also temporarily stop my digestive system from working, causing stomach problems and nausea. I also have a bunch of messed up discs in my neck, and a mild slipping rib, so that explained the chest/back pain.

So in short, I had a lot of scary neuro symptoms that turned out to be a type of migraine and some crappy discs. Not wonderful, but definitely none of the scary things it could have been.