Drugs

Feng warned me I'd have good weeks and bad weeks. Last week was a bad week. At my therapy I was feeling good, so we pushed the rotator cuff for the first time. A bit too hard, I think, and then a couple of days later I photographed the body building championships and carrying the heavy lens for a few hours probably didn't help.

Normally I dislike taking drugs. I have to hurt quite a bit to take pain killers, so the fact that I've chewed my way through a jumbo pack of Neurofin plus is a bad sign.  Then last week my father in law gave me a script for some serious anti inflammatory drugs.  I'm now taking Naproxen 500mg twice a day, and after three days, the signs are good.

It doesn't increase your range of movement, but controlling inflamation and therefore pain is a very good thing.  I think this drug is an example of what the call a NSAID.

A Muddle of Therapies

The net is a whirlpool of wackies and gems.

I've just been talking to Jenny, who says she had good experience with a chiropractic treatment called McTimoney. So I thought I ought to start catalogue of the treatments I've found so far. But first, in looking for information and local practitioners here's an example where McTimoney sits beside the crap. If I were selling a therapy, I would not want to be listed near this entry:

Earth Whisperer
I have the ability to see, sense and heal ley lines, underground water, electrical fields, geomantic stress etc, Arrange a reading and healing to assist in improving your health, wealth and happiness.

What is geomantic stress? Hang on - gotta look that up....okay here's a snippet:

Whether your sacred space is a single crystal, a personal altar, a standing stone, medicine wheel, labyrinth, stone circle or something larger; geomancy can help you design, locate, align and activate the space so that it connects with and enhances the natural energies of the earth.

Am I a grumpy old curmudgeon, or is this complete bollocks?

My Top Tips

This is my most important post.

Feng told me I'd have good days and bad days. Today is a good day, very little pain. I could almost fantasise right now it's all but over, but I know, no such luck.  I'm going to do some serious stretching in a minute, and that will certainly bring back the pain, at least for a while.

Tip #1 Stay Positive
Yeah, right, I tell myself. That's what they all say, airhead self help books. Try doing that when your gurgling to the bottom of a day soaked in pain.

Well, no choice. The famous book On Death and Dying some years ago talked about the stages of grieving. That's sort of it.  You go through a phase of denial, followed by anger, and eventually you end up with acceptance (skipped a step or two here).

Frozen Shoulder takes a long time to heal, and eventually you have to accept it. Well I accept it maybe, but I sure as shit am not going to give in to it.

The real point is you must be active.  Do the exercises, do the stretches, get the therapy, and don't give up. Stupid idiot head flippin syndrome is not going to get the better of me.




Tip #2 Manage the Pain
The pain hits, and your reflex is to clam up. Do not do this.  

• Listen to your body. Yeah, it's bloody well winging about being sore here or aching there. So where exactly is it hurting? It may be the shoulder itself, or it may be referred pain. Or, I often find it's actually around my neck or upper back, stresses transmitted because I'm hunching my shoulders.
   
• Don't just sit there, get up and move.  My favourite exercise is the pulley system. I'll spend 10 or 15 minutes gently winching my arm up and down. It loosens things up a treat, and in my book is better than taking drugs.
   
• Use a heat sack.  I have a cloth sack filled with wheat that I put in the microwave.  Sometimes  I back myself up to a wall, and push the hot beads, massaging my back. Does wonders. Many times a day.
   
• Tiger Balm. Or similar. I use the hot stuff. The hotter the better. Hot enough to melt the cloths off my back if I could get it. Makes me smell like I've just come out of the football change room, but who gives a flying fig when it's relieving your pain!
   
• Drugs. Don't like them, but last resort. I've moped my way through a jumbo pack in the last 6 weeks or so

Tip #3 Exercise!!
Don't give in to the urge to go all floppy because you're in pain. More later exercises.


Tip #4 Therapy
I'm still having the weekly acupuncture and manipulation from Feng. However in the course of this melancholy I've found many different types of claimed cure.  I honestly don't know if there's a 'best' one, but in a future posting I'll catalogue them.


Tip #5 Log Your Progress
Since early on I've kept a chart showing my maximum stretch. See here.  The news may not always be good, but being able to measure your progress gives you evidence that it's working.
So far my gains have been marginal, but every so often I achieve a personal best, and that feels good.

Go to it!

 

The Guilty article

Look what I found today, lying near the kitchen at work. This is the offending item.
This is the sponge ball I threw, triggering my Frozen Shoulder.

I HATE this ball.

Now tell me it's only a thing, so how can I hate that. Don't care, not about logic. I HATE this ball.

Zap #2 - Tap Zap

A Zap occurs when you automatically rip your arm in one direction or other because of something you didn't expect.  The high-speed arm yanking manoeuvre causes sudden, severe pain.

Frozen Shoulder has revealed to me surprising opportunities for creative new ways to trigger the Zap. Here's one I'd never have thought of.

The other day I was in the kitchen; arm very sensitive so I asked handy stray person nearby to pull my polyester jacket over my head. Great plan, but also had the effect of charging me up with several thousand volts of static electricity. Next, I reach out and touch the tap.  ZAP goes a great bolt of electricity from my right hand to the tap, YANK goes my arm, and YIKES goes my yell. Followed by a florid stream of colourful words I won't repeat here.

The immediate effect is of course several minutes of woeful moaning and groaning, and the horrified looks on everybody's faces.

The longer term effect is perhaps more serious. It means you begin consciously and unconsciously protecting your arm. You begin holding your arm in close to your body to reduce the possibility of future Zaps. You restrict shoulder movement, and thereby maybe worsen the freezing effect.

One symptom of Frozen Shoulder is the loss of fluid in the joint. This increases inflammation, joint lining damage, and subsequent scaring.

Now I'm actively trying to ensure I use my arm instead of leaving it permanently pinned to my side.
And while doing that I'm now doubly careful when taking off polyester clothing.

More Zap stories to come.

More Needles

There are so many fake medical remedies out there, I'm quite wary about what I would use.

Chiropractic medicine may have benefits but some of the claims about what it can do seem over the top to me.  Reiki and homeopathy are right out in my book, as are iridology and reflexology. Herbal medicine needs to be looked at carefully because of the unregulated doses of the active ingredients and lack of rigorous testing in many cases.

Of the alternative medicines I think I'd be most inclined to accept benefits of acupuncture, but I'm not sure why.  Here is a link to an ABC story about some acupuncture research that says in regard to back pain

After eight weeks, 60% of the patients who received acupuncture of some form reported significant improvement in their ability to function compared 37% of those who got standard medical care alone.

That sounds promising. It also says that in this study there was no significant difference between needles and toothpicks being used.  As far as I can tell science does not yet have a good explanation for acupuncture.

While we're on the ABC, here's a story from them about Frozen Shoulder.

Today I feel I'm making no progress with this condition. I'm about to purchase the electronic version of the book from FrozenShoulder.com. Here's a link to an article by the man behind this, Simeon Niel-Asher.

Pin Cushion

This is a first for me. I never had acupuncture before, but for this I thought I'd give it a try. It's a slightly out of character since I'm fairly conservative with this sort of thing.  Outside my day job I produce a science radio program, and write occasional columns for a national broadsheet newspaper.

I was referred to Feng by someone who recommended him for this condition. The first thing I wanted to see was whether and how he would assess me. Would he just assume Frozen Shoulder, and move straight to the needles? What other treatments would he apply?

The first thing he did was ask me a few basic questions (I was already certain of the diagnosis). Then he held my arm and moved it through its range in each direction: up, forward, backward.

The treatment each time begins with an assessment of my current state. How far can I lift my arm to the front, to the side, and behind me.  Then he loosens things up by swinging it in all directions.

Stretching is next, and this is where the fun starts. He pushes my arm to the limit of movement, and then a bit; sometimes with a rocking motion, sometimes with me squeezing his hand. This hurts.

Then I get the needles, which mostly don't hurt much. But sometimes a particular one hits a sensitive spot, and that's very uncomfortable.

He puts sunglasses on me, and aims a huge laser gun at my joint. It has a red glow coming out of it, but no obvious Star Wars laser beam. To be honest, I can't see how this bit works.

Now all kitted up sitting in a chair with about 10 needles in my neck, shoulder, and elbow, I sit and wait for about 20 minutes. Sometimes he reappears and re-aims the gun--oops, I mean laser.

He takes the needles out, and moves onto more serious stretching and manipulation. This really hurts, and I must breathe deeply and consciously to bear the pain.

Finally it's all over and I'm free to go, relieved that we're done for the week. I generally feel the pain of the treatment for 15-30 minutes.

I really have no idea whether the needles do anything, but I'm in no doubt the manipulation loosens my arm for at least a while.

More on this to come.

Ways to Get Zapped #1

This is the first of an occasional series on how to zap your frozen arm. The zap is triggered by something you don't expect. Something that startles you, and by reflex you whip your arm in one direction or another.

The result is jarring, searing pain that lasts about 5 minutes. Your arm does not like being jerked like this. Not recommended.

Zap #1  The Bouncy Dog
Occurs when you decide to lie on the loungeroom floor to do some exercises, and excitable puppy thinks it'd be fun to jump on your face. Without thinking you yank your injured arm up to protect yourself. Rusty knife jabs let you know immediately this was a bad idea.

Now with Bonus Rotator Cuff!

The evolution of my condition is becoming a little clearer. Apparently I have some rotator cuff damage as well. That's what I did when I threw the sponge ball.

The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles that hold the top bone (humerus) into the joint. It's these that contribute the amazingly flexible mechanism that allows us to swing our arms in all sorts of directions. Rotator cuff injuries seem pretty common, and they can take a while to heal. In my case I think it was the triggering injury for Frozen Shoulder.

Today I also found a web site that rounded shoulders may also increase your risk. By chance, I did have a therapeutic massage a few months ago, and the masseur commented on my rounded shoulders. She said she could tell because my shoulder blades don't sit flat on my back.

The final straw was after my injury I started using free weights. But I think I was a bit too enthusiastic with them, and instead aggravated things.

So the sequence is something like this:

April 2009 - massage, noted rounded shoulders
May - threw sponge ball, damaged rotator cuff
June - desert motorbike trip
July - weights; onset of FS
7 Sep - today, probably end of Freezing stage.

I've just found a web site where they claim to have a therapy that offers rapid healing. I am wary since there are many fakes out there. I will research a bit more, and record here how it pans out. However it looks reasonably promising.

See http://www.frozenshoulder.com/

Cheating

 

This is what Frozen Should does to you. 

The human body is an amazingly intricate device of interconnected parts. When Frozen Shoulder kicks in, you can no longer swing your arm through the full range of movement. To compensate you lift the entire shoulder. Check the height differences of the tip of the shoulder. See the curvature of the spine. Imagine the extra stresses transmitted to the surrounding muscle.

So while the immediate effect is in the shoulder itself, it ripples outwards causing knock on problems.

This photo shows what Feng calls 'cheating'. It shows how you make up for what the joint is supposed to do through contortions in other places.

Bingo Wings

This whole affair is a challenge to my masculinity.  I've always been fit and strong, and never had a chronic physical injury like this. Too bad I didn't get the initial injury tossing the khyber, shot-put, or dwarf. No, it was a flimsy little sponge ball. How girly is that?

My right-arm strength is probably about 50% of what it would be. I've even developed a bingo wing! If you don't know what that means - it's a bit of a cruel joke against old people who play bingo. When they put their hand up, the wing of flesh under their arm flaps ungracefully.

The loose flap of flesh under my arm is testimony to the lack of use it's getting. A similar thing is showing on the tip of my shoulder. The other day I asked Feng if the slight lump there is normal. He tells me it's the tendon revealed as the muscle has shrunk. Don't tell anyone, but I've never been one of those bulky over-muscled types. Still, this is a bit rough!

However at this stage the priorities are to control the pain, and get movement back. Then strength will follow.

Even breaking my collarbone wasn't this bad. That hurt a lot more, but every day I was a little better. With Frozen Shoulder - so far - every day is nearly the same; sometimes better, sometimes worse. But the last to days I've been doing better. Today better still, and the optimist in me says I'm on the road out of this pit.

About 6 weeks in, so I have a way to go, but if the last couple of days continue, I'm optimistic. We'll see!

Night Stalker

There's something about this condition that means it loves the night. You'll feel okay during the day, but at night it hunts you down and inflicts your sleep time with pain.

 Last night was good, and I only woke up once. Other nights, I wake two or three times. I have to sit up, take extra strong pain killers, and wait for it to subside. Extra strong Tiger Balm and an electronic massager also help.

Feng says he thinks I should sleep on my right side, but laying my body weight on top of the sore shoulder seems a bit much. Last night I lay on my back, but angled towards my right rather than fully on it. That seemed okay.

Feng tells me some people take to sleeping in lounge chairs rather than in bed helps.  I don't know I'm that desperate. It's still winter here, and I'm not keen on spending my nights out in the cold living room.

Why is it that chronic diseases seem to target sleep time.