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Dull, Aching Pain in Both Arms
Hi. This may be lengthy, but I'll make it as short as I can.
I'm an 18 year old female who has recently moved across country and since then, has been under some stress.
About ten days ago, I literally woke up with this sore pain under my right arm. I was under the impression that it was simply a muscle I had pulled that night and began to treat it with with heat and ice. After about two or three days, what I had assumed had not started to feel any better, but actually worse. After some closer inspection from my self and my partner, we noticed that the area was slightly swollen, and he suggested that it might be an infected lymph node.
Well, it was not a day later when began to get this dull, almost numbing ache in my right arm from shoulder to finger tips. It was very similar to the sensation of holding a chunk of ice in your hand and feeling your joints and muscles begin to hurt because of the cold, and perhaps even to smacking your funny-bone extremely hard. Though it is NOT painful to the touch. I get temporary aches like this from time to time and passed it off as simply one of those instances. However, after two days the pain had not gone away, but worsened and traveled to my left arm.
It has been four or five days since then, and I have been in to see a doctor, who was about as stumped as I am. He felt the knot in my armpit and assumed that, yes, it very well could be a swollen lymph node, yet he was completely oblivious as to what this constant pain in my arms could be. He wrote me a prescription for sulfameth, an antibiotic, and told me to have my blood drawn far testing. That was about two days ago.
For some time I was concerned that it might be a serious illness, but logically I'm certain it's not. What has me puzzled is that, since the aching has moved into my left arm, it has not traveled anywhere is in my body, but has stayed within the region of my arms, shoulders and neck. For the past couple of days since I have been taking the sulfameth, it seems as though the pain is much less in the morning and sometimes not even there. However, as the day goes by, it very slowly begins to get worse until the early evening rolls around when I can feel it rather intensely in my shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The soreness in my armpit has diminished, but I wonder if that may simply be the work of ibuprofen that I have been taking.
However, through all of this, I have noticed that the less I concentrate on the pain in my arms and busy myself with other things, the aching in my arms seems to go away, or at least be less. During meditation (which I do frequently) I have been able to get rid of the pain completely, until I think about it.
As I said, I'm stumped. Though I'm not expert, it seems odd that I would get such a pain from what I hope is a simple, swollen lymph node; that it would move from my right arm to my left arm in a matter of days, and then nowhere else; and that the less I think on it, the less pain I feel. Which makes me wonder, could it simply be in my head?
I'm extremely confused and rather concerned, so help would be FANTASTIC.
Thanks!
I'm an 18 year old female who has recently moved across country and since then, has been under some stress.
About ten days ago, I literally woke up with this sore pain under my right arm. I was under the impression that it was simply a muscle I had pulled that night and began to treat it with with heat and ice. After about two or three days, what I had assumed had not started to feel any better, but actually worse. After some closer inspection from my self and my partner, we noticed that the area was slightly swollen, and he suggested that it might be an infected lymph node.
Well, it was not a day later when began to get this dull, almost numbing ache in my right arm from shoulder to finger tips. It was very similar to the sensation of holding a chunk of ice in your hand and feeling your joints and muscles begin to hurt because of the cold, and perhaps even to smacking your funny-bone extremely hard. Though it is NOT painful to the touch. I get temporary aches like this from time to time and passed it off as simply one of those instances. However, after two days the pain had not gone away, but worsened and traveled to my left arm.
It has been four or five days since then, and I have been in to see a doctor, who was about as stumped as I am. He felt the knot in my armpit and assumed that, yes, it very well could be a swollen lymph node, yet he was completely oblivious as to what this constant pain in my arms could be. He wrote me a prescription for sulfameth, an antibiotic, and told me to have my blood drawn far testing. That was about two days ago.
For some time I was concerned that it might be a serious illness, but logically I'm certain it's not. What has me puzzled is that, since the aching has moved into my left arm, it has not traveled anywhere is in my body, but has stayed within the region of my arms, shoulders and neck. For the past couple of days since I have been taking the sulfameth, it seems as though the pain is much less in the morning and sometimes not even there. However, as the day goes by, it very slowly begins to get worse until the early evening rolls around when I can feel it rather intensely in my shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The soreness in my armpit has diminished, but I wonder if that may simply be the work of ibuprofen that I have been taking.
However, through all of this, I have noticed that the less I concentrate on the pain in my arms and busy myself with other things, the aching in my arms seems to go away, or at least be less. During meditation (which I do frequently) I have been able to get rid of the pain completely, until I think about it.
As I said, I'm stumped. Though I'm not expert, it seems odd that I would get such a pain from what I hope is a simple, swollen lymph node; that it would move from my right arm to my left arm in a matter of days, and then nowhere else; and that the less I think on it, the less pain I feel. Which makes me wonder, could it simply be in my head?
I'm extremely confused and rather concerned, so help would be FANTASTIC.
Thanks!
I know it's been a while but I have the same symptoms and wondered if you figured it out? My aches are not there in the morning either? I'm stumped and my doctor is too.
Hello Sirius,
Welcome to the Pain Management Forum. Please forgive my tardy response.
Your condition is puzzling. It could be as simply as a nasty virus or bacteria that has decided to take up residency in your body for awhile. If that is the case it will take time. ATB's do not effect the course of a virus.
If you have a bacteria and the sulfameth is the correct drug to treat it you should note some improvement in symptoms in 72 hours. It's also possible that the sulfameth is not the correct ATB to destroy the baceria.
You may have more than one thing occurring in your body at the same time, hence the confusing symptoms.
It is interesting that you have no pain in the morning and that mediation eliminates your pain. You also stated that keeping busy causes the pain to "go away." All pain has some stress and anxiety connection. However I would guess that most of us chronic pain suffers cannot eliminate our pain through activities and mediation, even though both can be helpful and are often important.
Because of your young age you may be more exempt from many disease processes. But that doesn't mean that they are not a possibility. If you are not improving than by all means return to your PCP. Search for the solutions.
You are always welcome here but you may also want to post in our Woman's Health, General Health or Undiagnosed Symptoms Communities. They may offer additional and more helpful suggestions.
Please feel free to ask more questions. I will look forward to hearing from you again. I wish you the very best of luck and hope that you can get to the bottom of your symptoms.
Take Care,
~Tuck
Welcome to the Pain Management Forum. Please forgive my tardy response.
Your condition is puzzling. It could be as simply as a nasty virus or bacteria that has decided to take up residency in your body for awhile. If that is the case it will take time. ATB's do not effect the course of a virus.
If you have a bacteria and the sulfameth is the correct drug to treat it you should note some improvement in symptoms in 72 hours. It's also possible that the sulfameth is not the correct ATB to destroy the baceria.
You may have more than one thing occurring in your body at the same time, hence the confusing symptoms.
It is interesting that you have no pain in the morning and that mediation eliminates your pain. You also stated that keeping busy causes the pain to "go away." All pain has some stress and anxiety connection. However I would guess that most of us chronic pain suffers cannot eliminate our pain through activities and mediation, even though both can be helpful and are often important.
Because of your young age you may be more exempt from many disease processes. But that doesn't mean that they are not a possibility. If you are not improving than by all means return to your PCP. Search for the solutions.
You are always welcome here but you may also want to post in our Woman's Health, General Health or Undiagnosed Symptoms Communities. They may offer additional and more helpful suggestions.
Please feel free to ask more questions. I will look forward to hearing from you again. I wish you the very best of luck and hope that you can get to the bottom of your symptoms.
Take Care,
~Tuck
Also, I'm not sure if this was the right category, but I could not find any other area that it might have been considered.
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