Symptoms of a lesion
If there is a lesion of a spinal nerve or one of the two nerve roots located just before this nerve, this can cause symptoms that can give an indication of the location of the lesion. The primary characteristic is that if only one spinal nerve is affected, the symptoms are limited to a certain area of the body, since each spinal nerve supplies a specific segment. This is particularly easy to assign to the trunk, since the segments are arranged in strips as so-called dermatomes.
In the area of the extremities, the various spinal nerve fibers are mixed in nerve plexuses (plexus), so that the assignment to a segment is no longer quite so simple, but follows clear rules. Typical symptoms of a lesion of the spinal nerve or nerve root can be pain, paresthesia, sensory disturbances, disturbances in muscle function or disturbances in sweat secretion in the area supplied by the affected spinal nerve.If, for example, shingles (herpes zoster) is present in the area of the nerve root, which bypasses the tenth thoracic spinal nerve (Th 10), the patient could complain of shooting pains, sensory discomfort and possibly also sensitivity disorders in the abdomen at the level of the navel.
