Numbness in hand having to do with shoulder

Dear Ask The Doctor: Hello, I had an anterior shift surgery on my right shoulder 6 years ago. Everything was going fine afterward. Last year, during football season (I'm an athletic trainer), I started having transient numbness in right hand. At first, it would happen a couple of times a day, for a few minutes, then after a couple of weeks, it turned into numbness all of the time. In the beginning, if I shifted my arm and tried different positions of shoulder placement, I could get the numbness to go away. I went to the doctor and he said it was carpal tunnel, although he didn't do any kind of MRI or anything and I had told him it was originating from my shoulder. A few months after football season, I progressively started getting back to "normal" and everything was fine. Well, football just started back a few weeks ago and I'm having the same issue. I was wondering what this could be and what I need to do to treat it? Thanks!

Dear Sheena: The numbness in your right hand as you described it might be due to a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but it would be important to rule out a cervical nerve compression. In the younger patients, cervical radiculopathy may be a result of a disc herniation or an acute injury causing impingement of an exiting nerve. The treatment strategy usually includes: a physical therapy program aimed to reduce pain and inflammation, and the use of anti-inflammatory drugs (“Motrin”, “Aleve”), also a re-education of habits and posture to improve quality of life. You should be independent in a stretching and strengthening program and continue with these exercises under the periodic supervision of a physical therapist initially and then completely on your own. If the condition fails to improve with a comprehensive rehabilitation program and selective injections, if required, then you should be presented with a surgical evaluation. Often, patients should show progressive improvement over the first 6-8 weeks with conservative treatment. If there is no significant improvement in this time frame, consider a reevaluation.