Shoulder Update
Jul. 3rd, 2009 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI did indeed see my doctor about my shoulder. Her diagnosis was "rotator cuff." After reading up, I'm guessing I have a (very minor) strain of these tiny muscles in the shoulder.
What she wants me to do matched what I hoped much more than what I feared. She said I should take my choice of either four ibuprofen pills, three times a day (yes, 12 pills a day), or one of some other pill she could prescribe once a day for two weeks.
I asked her if one was safer or more effective than the other. She said the single pill is better because you only have to take it once, so you're more likely to actually do it.
She said the pills would reduce the swelling. I asked if that was just to reduce the pain. She said, oh, no, it also helps with the healing.
She also prescribed three exercises/physical therapy:
1) Lean over, hanging my arm down, with my elbow bent so that my right hand is on my right shoulder. Then move my elbow to make small circles, and then tiny circles, and then small circles in the other direction and then tiny circles.
2) Stand up straight in front of a door and walk my fingers up the door (until it starts to hurt) and then back down.
3) Stand up and lift my arm straight out to the side and then straight up, only as far as I can without hurting.
She told me to do these 100 times a day.
These exercises, also referred to as "stretches," are supposed to keep my shoulder from locking up. If you put your arm in a sling or quit using it because it hurts, eventually you won't be able to use it any more.
She also had me get an X-ray. There was an X-ray place right next door, and they had sent the images to my doctor's computer by the time I walked back. She said everything looked fine, but there might be a small (forget what it's called) growth on the bone.
So raaga123 has the winning guess (yea!). And madspark doesn't (yea!). I actually got to see the X-ray myself, and there was no sign at all of any alien forms growing there. (Also very little sign of any muscle-it was kind of creepy.)
Overall, the treatment sounded very easy to live with. And I thought it would have the side benefit of no headaches at all for two solid weeks.
The two weeks were up on Monday. The prescription was going to cost $50, and although my co-pay would have been only $10, I decided not to waste the money. It only cost about $3 for 14 X 12 = 168 ibuprofen when I bought the big bottle. I had very little trouble taking all the proper doses. I went for 7:00, 3:00, and 11:00, and I was late with the second one a couple of times, but it wasn't bad.
I did have three headache twinges-basically, headaches that lasted about one second or less. My shoulder felt exactly the same, though. But I didn't have any bad side-effects (stomach destruction).
As for the stretching, the first one above was very easy. The second one was so easy I didn't need a door. I just lifted my arm up and would feel a tiny sign that I was damaged during part of the exercise, but it didn't hurt. The third exercise started hurting by the time my arm got parallel to the floor. Unless I did the first exercise first. If I did the first exercise first, I could move my arm all the way up with only a tiny discomfort at one point.
I definitely didn't do all the exercises 100 times a day, but I did get close with the first (magical) one, because I would do it every time I was doing the other ones, plus any time I was going to do something dangerous like put away dishes, hang laundry, or go to dance class. I was much happier in class, which probably let me do too much.
Now that I've stopped the ibuprofen therapy, I continued to notice no change in how my shoulder felt until last night when (after the stretches) I was definitely doing some things painlessly that I'm pretty sure would have hurt previously. I'm going to keep doing the stretches for a while until things don't hurt anymore. Then I will look into the strength-building exercises that prevent shoulder strain which I've read about on the web.
What she wants me to do matched what I hoped much more than what I feared. She said I should take my choice of either four ibuprofen pills, three times a day (yes, 12 pills a day), or one of some other pill she could prescribe once a day for two weeks.
I asked her if one was safer or more effective than the other. She said the single pill is better because you only have to take it once, so you're more likely to actually do it.
She said the pills would reduce the swelling. I asked if that was just to reduce the pain. She said, oh, no, it also helps with the healing.
She also prescribed three exercises/physical therapy:
1) Lean over, hanging my arm down, with my elbow bent so that my right hand is on my right shoulder. Then move my elbow to make small circles, and then tiny circles, and then small circles in the other direction and then tiny circles.
2) Stand up straight in front of a door and walk my fingers up the door (until it starts to hurt) and then back down.
3) Stand up and lift my arm straight out to the side and then straight up, only as far as I can without hurting.
She told me to do these 100 times a day.
These exercises, also referred to as "stretches," are supposed to keep my shoulder from locking up. If you put your arm in a sling or quit using it because it hurts, eventually you won't be able to use it any more.
She also had me get an X-ray. There was an X-ray place right next door, and they had sent the images to my doctor's computer by the time I walked back. She said everything looked fine, but there might be a small (forget what it's called) growth on the bone.
So raaga123 has the winning guess (yea!). And madspark doesn't (yea!). I actually got to see the X-ray myself, and there was no sign at all of any alien forms growing there. (Also very little sign of any muscle-it was kind of creepy.)
Overall, the treatment sounded very easy to live with. And I thought it would have the side benefit of no headaches at all for two solid weeks.
The two weeks were up on Monday. The prescription was going to cost $50, and although my co-pay would have been only $10, I decided not to waste the money. It only cost about $3 for 14 X 12 = 168 ibuprofen when I bought the big bottle. I had very little trouble taking all the proper doses. I went for 7:00, 3:00, and 11:00, and I was late with the second one a couple of times, but it wasn't bad.
I did have three headache twinges-basically, headaches that lasted about one second or less. My shoulder felt exactly the same, though. But I didn't have any bad side-effects (stomach destruction).
As for the stretching, the first one above was very easy. The second one was so easy I didn't need a door. I just lifted my arm up and would feel a tiny sign that I was damaged during part of the exercise, but it didn't hurt. The third exercise started hurting by the time my arm got parallel to the floor. Unless I did the first exercise first. If I did the first exercise first, I could move my arm all the way up with only a tiny discomfort at one point.
I definitely didn't do all the exercises 100 times a day, but I did get close with the first (magical) one, because I would do it every time I was doing the other ones, plus any time I was going to do something dangerous like put away dishes, hang laundry, or go to dance class. I was much happier in class, which probably let me do too much.
Now that I've stopped the ibuprofen therapy, I continued to notice no change in how my shoulder felt until last night when (after the stretches) I was definitely doing some things painlessly that I'm pretty sure would have hurt previously. I'm going to keep doing the stretches for a while until things don't hurt anymore. Then I will look into the strength-building exercises that prevent shoulder strain which I've read about on the web.