"What Are The Symptoms Of A Pinched Nerve?"
by Dr. Benjamin Geddes

A pinched nerve is just a way to say that something is pushing on the nerve and it can cause a number of things. The most severe manifestation of that would probably be weakness. Unlike the spinal cord itself, if you have a pinched nerve, it affects only certain muscle groups that are innovated by that nerve. So, for example, if you had a pinched nerve on your C7, one of the nerves coming off your cervical spine, you may have tricep weakness, which makes it hard to extend your arm. And that's probably the most significant and probably the rarest manifestation of a pinched nerve.

But the most common thing is having pain. And it typically starts in the neck and can radiate. Kind of classically, we talk about it going down the arm, certainly for certain nerves in the neck that's a common finding. It can also radiate down into your shoulder. But I actually think that's probably the most common complaint I see with people with a pinched nerve in their neck is actually pain around their shoulder blade. It can also go up at the base of the skull.

Also, people can get numbness. And whether that's true numbness, where if I touch them, they can't feel me touching them, or it feels less than the other side. Or if it's more we consider paresthesia, which would be just sort of a tingling sensation. But if I were to touch you, it still feels normal, that's probably the most common thing in pain that I see.