Hello world!

I’ve worked in all areas of information technology for more years than I like to remember.  Because of the tendonitis caused by all that keyboard banging, I’m now recovering from my second frozen shoulder. 

This has been a journey in pain, sleeplessness, frustration, and recovery.  I am not a medical professional but have found processes and tools that have helped me recover.  I’m still looking, still researching, and would like to do this with your help.  I would love to find out how others have coped with this problem.

Insanely busy week

This past week has been incredibly busy.  Selling trick-or-treat bags at the local farmer’s market, preparing for company for an extended visit,  and the best of it all, became a distributor for the BodyBolster(tm) and started selling them on EBay. 

I discovered the BodyBolster when I was searching for tools/methods to help me stretch out this shoulder.  My first stretch (the arm up the wall on a towel) went 2 inches higher than the previous day when I used this bolster.  It was smooth, easy and felt good!  And, the other shoulder stretches definitely challenged my shoulder but it’s adjustible, so I’ve started with some air removed and I can inflate as I gain more flexibility. 

Anyway -I’m running out of time tonight, so I’m putting a link to my Ebay items – look for the BodyBolster.  I swear by it.

Frustration

It has been a tough week.  I had a bunch of things planned in getting my new sites up and running.  Things got delayed.  I did get approved to sell my trick or treat bags at the local farmers market so I did do that this week.  I enjoyed meeting the vendors and chatting with many of the customers of the market, however, I did not realize how standing on my feet for several hours would affect my back and shoulders.  I’ve gotten enough movement back in my frozen shoulder that most people don’t know that I’m dealing with this, but it still throws off my balance.  This on top of therapy my arm decided to twitch for 2 days, so I decided to stay off the computer until the twitching stopped!

This is the frustrating part - everytime I push my shoulder, it pushes back.  That cliche - two steps forward, one step back.   I do need to remember that there is a net one step forward and not take that step back to heart.

How the shoulder works

It’s amazing what is available on the internet now.  Here’s some links I found on youtube that show:

• How the shoulder works <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOZjgz18eOQ“>
• A demonstration of how the shoulders should work (a doctor’s examination) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrLbzZzJU8  It’s amazing at how many of these tests I could NOT do. 
• Arthoscopic surgery to release a frozen shoulder (graphic) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5To9tcYWrss

There’s more videos – seach on frozen shoulder.

What have you had to give up due to your frozen shoulder?

A couple days ago, I was talking about a new hobby that I’ve started.   This started me thinking about some hobbies that I’ve had to give up, at least temporarily, and maybe permanently.  They mostly require using both hands at the same time.  I’ve discovered that I’ve been able to keep up with some hobbies, such as gardening, because I can switch off hands/arms, giving them a break.

One of the hobbies I’ve had to give up is crocheting.  While I can do most things with both hands (including writing luckily!), I’ve never developed the ability to use a crochet hook with either hand.  I have an afghan with about 8 rows left.  I pulled it out last night to see if I could finish it off and I lasted about 15 minutes before my left elbow and shoulder started to hurt.  Maybe I can try this again AFTER my shoulder has completely healed.

I’m also a classically trained flautist and I haven’t been able to play for over 5 years now, even for my own amusement.  I probably will never be able to play again since the many (MANY) hours of practice in my teens and 20s are probably the beginnings of my tendonitis.   I really miss this.

Tell me what you have had to give up.

New hobby

I’ve had a busy last few days.  I’m starting up an internet business and during my research I found some canvas tote bags that would work well as trick or treat bags - they don’t tear like plastic or paper bags, they are reusable, and fold up small for storage.  I contacted my local farmer’s market and they indicated that I could sell them if I embellished them.  So, I made a jack o’ lantern face stencil and some friends and I spray stenciled a BUNCH of bags on Saturday.    Had fun!  Here’s the Field of Orange that my backyard became while the bags were drying.

I did use my shoulders differently doing this and paid with stiffness and additional pain.  However, I have discovered that I like to hand stencil items!  It uses some different muscles (always a good thing!) and it is something I can do while watching/listening to TV or the radio.  I now have a new hobby that my friends are telling me that they like.  So, I’m also going to see if my hand-stenciled totes (not just the jack o’ lanterns) sell at the farmers market, and if they do, I may start to sell them on etsy.com. 

Has anyone else learned a new skill or hobby as a result of going thru rehab?   I’m trying to come up with new hobbies and skills to replace those that I can’t do anymore. 

Stages of Frozen Shoulder

Friday is usually a good day.  It’s been 4 days since the latest round of therapy.  Today I was busy preparing for a stenciling project with friends tomorrow (I’m finding that I’m not very good at this! – hopefully my friends have some suggestions) so I’ve used my arm alot.  Now that I’m solidly in the thawing stage I usually don’t have pain if I’m using my arm within it’s range of motion (ROM) but I’m tired and achy tonight.

On another blog recently, someone was wondering how to tell what stage one’s shoulder was in.  This is how I describe it…

For me the Freezing stage was characterized by excruciating pain (I called them white-outs because I that’s all I would see for several seconds) (my avatar is a photograph from my yard that reminds me of white fireworks) when I moved or jerked my arm outside its current ROM.  I’ve also heard it called “exquisite” pain.  My shoulder slowly locked up, even with stretching exercises.  Tendonitis in both hands and arms hurt.  Except for very mild stretches, I stopped using the affected arm.

Frozen, my arm was stuck, wouldn’t move, would hurt if we tried to move it (but not that sizzling white-out) and the muscles and tendons in my shoulder and upper arm were like lumpy rocks and rubber.  The tendonitis in both hands and arms still hurt.  I wear a wrist brace on my right arm at night because I ended up straining some muscles across the top of my right hand.  It’s amazing how unbalanced we can be when a quarter of our body doesn’t want to move!

Thawing, I could start stretching out that scar tissue and the rigidity in my muscles and tendons started to release.  Pushing past my range of motion causes pain but it’s more like extreme workout pain, muscle cramps or strain.  The tendonitis in my left hand and elbow don’t hurt anymore (probably because that arm didn’t move for months) but my right forearm and sometimes hand does still bother me.

These stages take different times for different people and even for different shoulders.  How do you describe the different stages?

Sleeping

Yesterday was not a good day.  I woke early in pain and couldn’t get back to sleep.  With the cloudy day, I never seemed to get past that.   I have therapy every Monday and usually a Tuesday or Wednesday proves challenging as my muscles work out what my Dr and therapist have done.  And, this week it was yesterday!  Today is better though.

Part of the problem for me in sleeping is that I’m still not moving when I sleep.  I have 2 positions that are comfortable, and I seem to stay in one position until my body screams at me to move (of course, waking me up!). 

When I was in the freezing stage, I slept on my back with a memory foam wedge and pillows to support my arm and to keep from turning over.  Now I sleep on my right side (opposite the frozen shoulder) using a body pillow to position my arm so there’s no drag on the shoulder joint.  Sometimes I even shove another squishy pillow under my shoulder to make sure it doesn’t move. 

How do you manage sleeping?   Even though I’m in the ‘thawing’ stage and pain management is better, I’m still sleep deprived.   I wonder if it’s ever possible to make up the sleep deprivation this condition causes!

What started your frozen shoulder?

The medical community doesn’t know what causes frozen shoulder but the people I’ve talked to say that it usually has a physical trigger such as a rotator cuff injury or strain.   My trigger was tendonitis caused by overuse of my hands.   Can you believe that using your hands can cause problems with your shoulder?

I’ve been in IT since 1971 and my thumbs and hands have hurt off and on since I started using a mouse.  I’ve used just about every type of mouse available and trained myself to alternate hands in order to keep the pain down but when I added an on-line MBA (adding another 2-3 hours of computer work a day) to my hands, my body rebelled.  The tendonitis flared into one wrist, switched to my opposite elbow and then back to my entire right arm.  And then it started – the shoulder pain.  It took 3 months to get a diagnosis and by then I had lost about 50% of my range of motion.  That was 5 years ago and there was not as much on the internet about frozen shoulder as there is now.  This was one of the sites that I found with a straightforward description: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/frozen-shoulder/DS00416.

What started your frozen shoulder.  Has anyone out there had this start without a physical trigger?

BTW – I did get that MBA by the help of my school teammates and some computer tools, but I’ll talk about that another day.