Pain Down the Arms - Referred or Radicular?

Friday September 7, 2007

Dermatomes are routes throught he body taken by nerves that exit the spine.

_{Illustration:
(c) Anne Asher 2006
Licensed to About.com}

Like sciatica, pain down the arms can be caused by a bulging or herniated disk. Unlike sciatica, pain down the arms, if it is a disk problem, comes from the neck, rather than the low back. But disk problems are not the only potential cause.

Doctors differentiate between two types of conditions that send pain down the arm – radiculopathy and referred pain. Referred pain is the type you can feel in one area, but has come from an irritation in a different area. Trigger points are a good example of referred pain.

Radicular pain is due to a condition of the nerve root (collection of nerves that exit each level of the spine). Pain from irritated or damaged nerve roots travel the body via pathways called dermatomes. When the doctor examines you to find out where the pain is coming from, she will do neurological tests that look for pain or deficit along the dermatomes. This helps her to exactly identify from which vertebral level the pain originates.

| Spinal Bones in Pictures | Nervous Tissue | Signs & Syptoms of Back Problems |

_{Sources:

Daub, Clifford W. A case report of a patient with upper extremity symptoms: differentiating radicular and referred pain.
Chiropractic & Osteopathy 2007, 15:10 doi:10.1186/1746-1340-15-10

Medline Plus Medical Dictionary. Referred Pain, Radiculopathy.}