I’m doing a lot of driving as I go from North Carolina to upstate New York, and then I’ll be driving down to Texas and back to NC. Then I turn around and go back to NY and then up to New Hampshire before I head back to NC again. Whew! This brings me to the biggest problem I have when I drive these long distances…burning in the middle of my back between my shoulder blades.
When you get the burning between your shoulder blades you have an automatic tendency to want to rub the area, but it’s not coming from your back, it’s actually coming from a neck muscle in the front of your neck. The muscle, called Scalenes, crosses over a bundle of nerves called the brachial plexus. When the scalenes go into a spasm they will press on the brachial plexus and refer burning/numbness/tingling to many different areas.
It depends on which nerve fibers are being impinged by the scalenes muscles as to where you will feel the burning sensation, it may be your upper back, upper chest, your entire arm and even into your hand. In fact, the scalenes are one of the key muscles that cause the identical symptoms as felt with carpal tunnel syndrome.
You can self-treat the scalenes by simply pressing on the spasms in the muscle fibers and then after all the spasms are released you can stretch your scalenes by tilting your head back and then turning it toward the opposite side.
When I’m driving and I feel that burning between my shoulder blades I just press on the scalenes spasms and the burning just disappears.
Have a great day,
Julie