As I mentioned in my last post, i have somewhat recently sustained a shoulder injury. It actually happened back early November, yet there is no one distinct point a twhich it happened. All I know is that I played softball that night, much the same way as I did on most weeks, but I woke up that night with extreme pain in my right shoulder. When I say pain in my shoulder, I don’t mean pain like someone just punched me or I have a sore muscle, I mean like I felt there was in ice pick jammed deep into my shoulder. Obviously, I had no clue what had happened, and like any other person, just chalked it up to sleeping on it wrong or something. Unfortunately, the pain never really went away for good. Of course it subsided, but for a good month it would come back on and off, and I would literally have to try and stay as still as possible and not move my shoulder at all for a good 10-15 minutes.
For some reason, I still didn’t go see a doctor, thinking it could maybe just be a sore muscle, but nothing serious. Eventually the serious pain went away, but I still couldn’t throw a ball, or basically rotate my arm in that direction without pain. Every morning it would actually make a loud popping noise the first time I would rotate it fully, and that would basically allow me to continue to using until a few hours later when it would need to pop again. After another couple of months of this, I finally realized it was going to heal on its own, so I went to have my first MRI, Magnetic resonance imaging.
In case you have never been, the MRI can be pretty intesnse, especially if you are at all claustrophobic. They actually make the ceilings extra high, and have about 10 feet of space all around the MRI machine to make people full more comfortable. Of course, I, on the other hand, fell asleep during the procedure despite the loud knocking noise that goes on all around you during the 20 minutes or so while they are scanning you. Anyways, I got my films and scheduled an appointment with an Orthopedic doctor.
Originally, it was thought by a radiologists who looked at my films first, that I may have a partially torn rotator cuff, and tendon that connects my bicep muscle to my shoulder joint was out of place, which was causing the popping sound as it went back into place. However, the radiologists was wrong, as the Orthopedic guy disagreed. As a matter of fact, the orthopedic guy didn’t want to read the films, but wanted to run some tests on me first (moving my arm in different ways) before he looked at the films. So, after running his tests, and then looking at the films, he was kind of enough to draw me a nice full size diagram of the shoulder joint and explain to me what was wrong.
Apparently, I have worn out the cartilage in my Acromioclavicular (AC) joint, and the Bursa sac in inflammed. The AC joint is the small space b/t your Clavicle (collar bone) and the Acromion (bone on top of your shoulder), and since my cartilage is worn down, it basically bone on bone. He also said I had some small bone spurring on the Clavicle that were rubbing against some of the muscles in there. According to him, I was due to wear it out eventually with all the sports I’ve played and my age. The other problem was the inflammation of the Bursa, which is a small sac that resides b/t your outer muscles like your deltoid, and your inner rotator cuff muscles. Since this area is finite without much room to maneuver, when it becomes inflamed, it is hard to get it to go back down. The inflammation could also be as a result of the bone spurring on my Clavicle.
The good news from all of this is that he doesn’t think I will need surgery right away, but perhaps in the future. In the meantime, he gave some medicine and anti-inflammatory shots right into the AC joint and Bursa to help reduce the swelling, and we’ll see how it is in a few weeks. Since he did this last week my shoulder has been feeling great, so hopefully no surgery. However, if surgery is necessary, they will do an arthroscopic surgery where they will literally shave down my Clavicle and Acromion bones to allow for some more room b/t the bones and hope that the scar tissue provides some cushion. This should prevent the bones from rubbing, but sounds painful
Of course, this is all quite confusing, so I’ve provided a nice little image to help you understand what the heck I am talking about. This is a picture of the shoulder joint, and specifically points out the different areas that I referred to. Enjoy and hope you learned something with this post.
“ Awww, 20 dollars?!? I wanted a peanut.
Now, with two back to back basketball games, and a good 1/2 hour in between the two games, another 5-6 hours of my day have been used. If you add the draft, the basketball games, and the hour long drive each way to San Francisco, you can see why I had no time outside. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out more in the upcoming weekends, but days like this can happen every now and then, and you just have to accept it and not make it a habit. So, get out there and enjoy the day!
