Syndromes and Helga's House of Pain

I have a "syndrome". I feel so medically official. This isn't one of those bad "syndromes"; just a mildly annoying one.

Several months ago I tweaked my shoulder while working out. I thought I had just pulled a muscle but it just wouldn't heal up and, as time went on, the range of motion in my right arm kept getting smaller and smaller. When it got to the point where I could not reach over to the passenger seat of my car without getting nasty shooting pains from my shoulder to my finger tips, I figured it was time to get it checked out.

So, it turns out that I have "Shoulder Impingement Syndrome". A fairly common ailment, as I understand it. Basically it is an injury to the tendon under the rotator cuff in my right shoulder. And, because tendons are connected to muscle, which are connected to nerves, whenever I overextend my shoulder, I feel the pain all the way down my arm.

So, once I found out that this pain, or "discomfort" as they like to call it in the medical field, had a name - what do we do about it?

The answer was Physical Therapy. Welcome to Helga's House of Pain! For all of you who have undergone Physical Therapy, raise your hand if you ever got to the point where you were pretty sure that the cure was worse than the malady! When Erin (who actually is a wonderfully sweet physical therapist, despite being in a rather sadistic line of work), did my initial testing to find the points at which I would feel "discomfort", she queried out loud, "Wow, what is your shoulder blade doing over there?" A rather odd question. Had I suddenly grown a dorsal fin? I was glad to find out that shark-dom was a ways away but surprised to hear that my shoulder blade had moved about an inch to the left. So, how does one coerce a wayward blade back into its proper position? You massage the over-tightened muscles around it until they release the captive scapula. So, when Erin said "massage", I envisioned a lovely day at the spa. But, in a word... no. I am pretty sure that Erin is trying to actually reach through my entire body to massage the muscles on the other side!!

So, in keeping with that "everything is connected to everything else" theory, Erin is trying to release the muscles that, in turn, will release the shoulder blade, that will pull back the muscles that attach my arm to my shoulder, which will pull my arm bone off of the poor little tendon in my shoulder that is currently getting squished.

And actually, so far, so good. I have gotten back 10 degrees more range of motion than I had a week ago, so I will continue to take my masochistic self back for more therapeutic abuse with sweet, sadistic Erin. But if she pulls out the whips and chains, I'm outta there!!