The Kick Inside

About 14 months ago, I bought some groceries—a lot of them. I remember Diet Coke 12-packs were on sale for a crazy price, and I also grabbed water. Plus some canned vegetables. It was a crazy amount to attempt to carry, but I only live one city block away from the Food Emporium, so I did a typically male thing and soldiered home, my arms hyper-extended, straining under the weight and arching outward to allow my legs room to move.

When I got home, my finger was tingling on my right hand and my shoulder was sore. The tingling didn't go away—it lasted a few days. I knew I'd screwed up, but didn't realize how badly. In retrospect, it could have been even worse.

I later started working out regularly for the first time in my life, running and doing some weights. I did pretty well, though my shoulder would hurt from time to time. Eventually, I felt my shoulder almost giving out when I would attempt too much weight, and this drove me to finally have it looked at.

I was put on anti-inflammatory medicine—three different kinds in a row—to no avail.

The sports doctor (an ortho) told me we could get an MRI first or do physical therapy first, but said he felt it was likely my rotator's cuff—I had strained my supraspinatus, and would need physical therapy. I'm very suspicious of physical therapy. In the past, I had some for my knee (also a one-off injury) and I honestly do not believe it did anything but sap funds from my HMO and myself while my knee healed naturally. So I opted for an MRI first—why not see the problem before working on it?

It's what's on the inside that counts.

The MRI was annoying. I waited around forever and the facility provided shockingly little privacy—I was sitting in an open waiting room in just a paper robe and underwear as another guy came out, making small talk with me. Then, I went into the machine and despite never having any major issues with claustrophobia, was completely unthrilled at the sensation of being nearly encased in the giant, oddly old-fashioned-seeming device. "What if the power goes out around the city? My arms are too close to my side to get much traction...could I squirm out? What if there is a flood? A fire? A building collapse? 9/11 v2.0?" All irrational thoughts racing through my head.

It was over in 20 minutes or so, and my results would later show nothing much at all—just slight tendonitis. By this time, the injury was eight or nine months old, so I felt that if the swelling was only slight, it must mean I was continually aggravating it. This was dismissed and I started therapy with a genial straight guy who called me "Rett-uh-MUN-do" (I later found out my name was misspelled in their records) when he wasn't called me papi or—oblivious to why it was so wrong—papi chulo! He had me do silly, minor exercises, but also tugged on my arm in a way that really bothered me. It was gentle, but I kept feeling it as not helpful. I received no exercises to do at home; he was more concerned with getting me to go in on LOTTO tickets and telling me stories, like the one about how he was told by someone's doctor to wrench her frozen arm in order to break up the scar tissue, and he did it with no warning in a public gym. This resulted in his being nearly kicked out of the gym because, you know, she had a cow.

Seven sessions through meaningless flexing, my arm actually hurt more consistently than ever. I asked my doctor to try a cortisone shot since that had once been mentioned. He did it. It did nothing. Then he did pressure-point shots. At this point, he stopped and told me no shots would help and that I really just needed to change my work station and improve my posture and that it would, you know, take time. A year and counting.

He also suggested...acupuncture. It felt like he was pretty much done and didn't care what I did so was throwing out everything but a faith healer.

I'd wound up spending hundreds of dollars and lots of time and my shoulder was worse off, not better.

Now, I'm seeing a new doctor.

Her nurse practitioner took all my info and did a brusque exam that involved pushing my arm way over my head till I yelped. She softened a bit later when I let her know my old doctor had suggested acupuncture. "My mother had a doctor for her arthritic knees who prescribed selling her house with all the stairs and moving into a ranch. Needless to say, she replaced her doctor, replaced her knees and kept the house."

My new doctor seems very informed and is less a sports doctor. She is a surgeon, but she is not thinking I need any. She backs up what the other doctor said as far as the extent of the damage, but she gave me a second cortisone shot that was more focused on the exact area of my pain. Her confidence was infectious—she said the pain would begin to subside within 48 hours, and if it was going well after 30 days, I'd slowly start exercises. My problem was that before, I was continually aggravating it through exercise and then physical therapy.

Over two days later, my shoulder—really, the outside of my upper arm—aches as usual, always when in use, sometimes when at rest, often at night. It's not bad. I can't complain of constant agony.

But it's a draining feeling, a constant reminder that you can sometimes make seemingly mundane choices that can follow you around if not forever, for a very, very long time.

Comments

[kenneth]

Wow! Sorry to hear about this. I have to say that your symptoms sound painfully familiar so I'd be curious to have you show me EXACTLY where and when it hurts.

While everyone was screaming "rotator cuff" at me back in the day it turned out my (good) doctor found that I had a contusion to my AC (acromioclavicular) joint, the area where part of the scapula and clavicle meet. Just riding in a car was painful ... lying in bed, well, living. After a couple of cortisone shots and months of endless pain I GLADLY agreed to have surgery (my one and only visit to the hospital in my life) and have been 100 percent cured ever since.

Remind me next time I see you and we'll play doctor.

[Matthew Rettenmund]

I was hoping if I posted this someone would yell out the true nature of my malady...little did I know it would be someone so close to the bone. I'll look into that! Cortisone and anti-inflam have done NOTHING. I keep wondering if the bones are slightly displaced, or if I took a strong muscle relaxant, if either are possible. I dunno. I'm bad at self-diagnosing.

[John Logsdon]

Did u hear the one about the guy who goes to his doctor and says "Doc...my arm hurts when I do this" and the doctor says....so don't do that....LOL....gets me everytime. Sorry to hear of your pains...

[viral vora]

gyms are to be blamed... i took to exercising and it landed me with a torn muscle/ligament in my arm and 21 days of stiff arms... i could pull a tee over my head... and walked around with my hadn stuck at a 90 degree angle... stop exercising it will return to normal... i hope... hope the pain goes away...take care

[Matthew Rettenmund]

Thanks! But when I did it, I wasn't exercising. But I think exercising afterward DID hurt. I'm now just running. Well, for the next 10 days I'm pretty much sitting around eating...