Q: I am a 39-year-old female. I have pain and numbness on my left side for the past three years. I have had MRIs and EKGs, but nothing has ever been diagnosed. The pain is getting worse and now it is constant. I feel numbness and pain on my left foot and pain above my left elbow and on the left side of my neck. I have headaches now, which I did not have before. I see a doctor yearly for physicals. Please suggest how to get rid of this pain.

A:Pain in the entire half of body is rather unusual. If face is also involved, it usually signifies some pathological process in the opposite half of brain (especially involvement of a structure called thalamus). If all your tests are coming as normal including MRI, it becomes difficult to localise the area of origin of pain. However, as pain has a strong affective component (thereby meaning that it can get activated, precipitated and perpetuated by mood changes), one has to look into the emotional aspect. Are you stressed beyond what is considered as normal? Occurrence of headache (called tension-type headache) also may suggest such a cause. However, to completely rule out any organic cause before attributing your symptoms to stress, you must get a thorough clinical examination by a qualified neurologist.