A New Pain & Serious Dysfunction: Winter 2010/2011

My face/shoulder pain turns into full blown arm pain, similar to my legs.  The pain seems to travel from my right neck and face into my deltoid, my front bicep, the top of my forearm, and into my fingers.  When asked, I would say the pain in my fingers is mostly located in the middle finger and sometimes index.  The pain also travels down the center of my right tricep and makes even my lighter lifting load extremely difficult.

EMGs are ordered in both my leg and arm and again prove negative.  Cervical MRI's reveal only a slight bulge in my cervical spine and possible an overly straight neck that may have been caused by muscle tightness from the affected nerve(?) in my arm.  I am not prescribed Lyrica, which like Neurontin, gives no aid whatsoever.

Brain MRI's also prove inconclusive.  I am ordered to see urologists for my increasing sexual dysfunction which has become very severe. Two urologist visits with doppler tests and injected vasodilation tests show that venuous leakage is very minor, if any.  Both urologists conclude that the problem is likely not related to genital or vascular function, and unlikely to be mental since I am handling the stress well at this point and have had zero problems with performance anxiety in the past.  I would rate my erection rigity at maybe 50% of what it used to be, with the only way to achieve erection with both visual and physical stimulation, focus, and laying on back.  Most noticeable, the underside and glans of penis can temporarily inflate when i bear down and clench my anus in but immediately unballoon.

I am on about my 4th nerve root injection, which at times can reproduce the same pain down my leg, but not make symptoms any better.

Possible Cyst & Amitytriptyline (sp?)
Amitytriptyline is prescribed to try and treat my worsening facial/neck pain with no results besides some side effects.  Multiple MRI's are ordered with and without contrast of my Brain and Pelvis.  The pelvis MRI reveals what I am told is a cyst in my pelvis.  I am told the cyst "may or may not" be causing any sexual pain or the earlier tailbone pain, but the Doctor believes probably not, and "even if it was the root of the pain, taking it out might be a little tricky".  So I am told to stop physical therapy, continue swimming, stop [attempting] light lifting and jogging.

Multiple MRIs were ordered on my sacral plexus and pelvis with and without contrast, I am not sure where the cyst is but here is a sample of images from one of the scans: