Thursday, November 29, 2007

Shouldering a burden

Today I had my first physical therapy session with Bill F., who is conveniently located about three blocks away from my home. The location is important; not dealing with traffic and parking makes it much less of a pain to get there. And PT's all about reducing pain, right?

Except. OW. Ow ow ow. This was not a pain-free experience.

Bill determined that my problem is not simply tendinitis, but the beginnings of adhesive capsulitis, or frozen shoulder. It's a weird syndrome; click that link if you want to read more about it.

If it were just tendinitis, I'd have some exercises to do and go back every couple of weeks. But in this case, he needs to break the scar tissue (adhesions) by forcing my arm past its comfortable (but greatly reduced) range of motion. Twice a week for at least a month. Plus icing and exercises at home.

Can you guess that it hurts? Yes, it does.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, ouch. Maybe the first one is the worst one? At any rate, I'm glad you're getting good care for it. Make sure you have good rewards ready for yourself every time you come home...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, owies. Nothing else much to say...just ow. Hope it loosens up quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'll just be glad to have a working arm again!

    ReplyDelete