Wellness

[Naneen]

I worked as a medical records transcriptionist for 30 years, and retired finally last May. I started having this condition in 2009 right after our jobs were outsourced to a transcription service in which our wages were cut to about one-third of what we were getting before, resulting in longer hours and much, much stress. During the next 3-6 months, this cough condition began. It hurt to cough, bend over, laugh or anything. Went to neurologist, who did an MRI which was negative, everything else normal. He suggested using a pillow at night that had an odd shape, a kind of bumped up area around it with a sunken area for my head to fit into, while underneath my neck was cushioned by this raised, bump area. I used it for a while and it did seem to help some. However, not surprisingly, I guess, after I retired last May and was no longer sitting for long hours at a computer with my shoulders bunched up, tight and stiff, and being under pressure to make line counts that would at least give me a halfway decent paycheck (being paid by how many lines you type each shift), very slowly, over the next three to four months or so, this condition almost disappeared..... interesting! May I suggest, going by my experience, that possibly your neck/shoulder muscles are tensed chronically, maybe not even noticed by you. Stress is a really strange thing and seems to manifest in surprisingly strange ways. You might try putting a hot wrap around your shoulders as often as possible, and, if you can, have someone really massage your shoulders and back of your neck up onto your scalp as often as you can. Not sure if this will help, but maybe its worth a try. Believe me, I know how painful this condition is... and the relief now is wonderful. I sure wish you the best, and hope you can find a resolution to this.

[Amazinggrace2]

Go to your doctor.

No one here can diagnose.

Good wishes to you and let us know.

[LilacTree]

On 2/23/2015 seaswirl said:

Tomorrow is my brain MRI to get to the bottom of my daily headaches. I've never had an MRI so I'm a little anxious.

Don't worry about the MRI. It's non-invasive and not radioactive. Some people have problems with the confinement, but other than that, it's the noise that irritates me. I have had several MRIs and the ear plugs they give you are worthless.

ETA: I see you have already had the MRI and hope you were not bothered by it too much. Glad you had good results!