In my experience, if this pain is nerve root pain from your neck, it may do no good to try and treat your hand or arm where you feel the pain, and OTC pain meds might not help as much as one would hope. Try applying ice or
moist heat or both to your
neck, instead, to see if this lessens the pain in your arm. I've also found that regular X-rays do not always show a herniated disk, but that an MRI is sometimes required.