Presentation: Those patients of degenerative spine usually present with radiculopathy which is characterized by the dermatomal levels from C4.
Most common involvement is C6, but C5, 6, 7, 8. Occasionally T1 can be involved, and the radiculopathy is mostly diagnostic. Mostly peculiar, they will just say the pain is on the outer aspect of their forearm or the inner aspect of their forearm.
Sometimes these patients may present with only back pain, and it’s sometime difficult to diagnose those patients that are having only back pain in this area.
There are multiple differential diagnoses which can be there. But if we have a high suspicion, then we’ll we will ask for an epidural or a nerve root block which sort of acts as a diagnostic block for us, apart from being therapeutic.
