update of medical fun!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2003
update of medical fun!!
4
Wed, 06-06-2007 - 8:08pm

I have now been seeing a physical therapist 3 times for my shoulder. there is tendonitis, but maybe something else. Anyway the first set of exercises seemed to be really be helping(at least I can now lift my right arm straight up without assistance from the left arm!! before at the least I had to use left arm to lower the right). its at least still that good. got 2nd set of exercises last wednesday and then confused myself on them plus misplaced the instructions. so I did what I thought I remembered but was sort of off on those. then Monday night decided i could wait no longer on the pot garden so got about 25 pots out of garage. only 4-5 bigger sized and only 2 of those were actually heavy. the only lifting i did was taking them up from ground and putting them in and out of the wagon. no obvious pains doing it, although the heaviest pot was sort of hard to do. then later in the evening the shoulder got crankier and crankier yesterday. had an appointment this morning and she suggested she could use this electrical current thingie to put medicine directly into the muscles to lessen the swelling so then I i would be able to do the exercises to strengthen the muscles. it was something that is some type of steroid, but the PT said much milder than cortisone shots and much less likely to give me funky BG numbers.

So far have not decided if it has really helped the pain or not. However about midmorning my BG level was something outrageous like 191 and then 169 about 2 hours after lunch. thankfully it has inched down and was around 156 about 5:30 and very thankfully the last check(can ya tell im getting nervous) was all the way down to 120. that i think is probably only 10-20 points higher than normal. I am hoping that it is not going to be all over the place from that one procedure. Did call drs office and was told if it suddenly started going a lot higher to call dr on call, and the nurse will check with my dr tomorrow. I got suspicious mid morning and started checking the BG numbers because i just felt "off" and what i was calling flakey. but i will also admit i think i ate more this morning than i should have.

An irony of this is i still am not sure how much improvement if any there will be from using that stuff. shjoulder is not pain free but i think its a little better.

it probably is a heads up to be really cautious and not very willing about having anything like a cortisone shot. also not sure if this was a 24 hour bump up of the BG numbers and they will be normal tomorrow or if they will be all over the map for a while. at the least i am guessing we need to really measure any improvement i have against how much my BG numbers will be messed up over time.

have decided and PT also said same thing, my using hedgetrimmers to trim the weed(alleged bush that grows like a weed) outside my door is too risky at this point. I thought the lifting the trimmers shoulder high was what would be the biggest problem but she said the vibration would really set it off so that is not going to be done.

Bottom line it is at the point if I am going to have any pot garden growing it was past time to haul out the pots. thankfully most of the stuff i have is doable in the small pots or at least smaller. i literally gave sister 1/2 of all the multipak stuff i got. i still need to clear under that weed and get the flowers in there, but am hoping i can do most of that left handed. At this point hopefully i can leave the rest of the big pots in garage. i still have to plant what i have(so its really going to be late start) but after monday nights cranky shoulder i figured it can wait a few days. of course we also have major duck weather today so not good time to do gardening anyway.

Avatar for cl_maryfrances40
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 06-06-2007 - 10:26pm

I am sorry to hear about your shoulder. I have had the cortisone "injected" into my shoulder using the ultrasound waves also and it also messed with my blood sugar but it didn't last too long. It is really much less drug than an injection.


I just watered my garden. I got the deer fence up earlier and I have flowers blooming in my yard. I can see how much damage they were doing. I just didn't realize how bad it was. I was surprised today to find three more bean plants coming up. I have some tomatoes set on my sweet 100 and Oregon Spring tomatoes. Oregon Spring is a cool weather variety and I am anxious to see how it does around here. I usually try to grow SF Fog but they can be hard to find. Home grown tomatoes taste soooo much better. I thought about getting a third plant that could take a little warmer weather but I decided that hubby and I probably couldn't eat all the produce.


Does your should have you off work? A period of rest and relaxation might help it.


Do take care and take it easy on the shoulder.


Avatar for cl_coldfingers
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Thu, 06-07-2007 - 12:18am

Sorry to hear about


iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2003
Thu, 06-07-2007 - 1:25pm

Nope no time off work for shoulder.

i think its cranky from a combination of the way I sleep and then being on the puter so much since last fall. Have decided i was way too patient with it hurting and should have gotten in to PT much earlier!! Am going to ask her one of these times if doing the same exercises i am doing now to strengthen shoulder would be advisable to continue doing once it is better. I mean for preventative reasons! since i have injured both shoulders in the last couple years, but this was the first time i saw dr to get treated!!

Thnakfully by the time I ate supper late last nite(it always ends up being late) my numbers were actually back to normal. woke up around 5am and checked the BG numbers and it was all the way down to 107. So its been lower than that but that is still pretty much in good range and it was close to that before I ate last night, so my guess is the treatment only gummed things up for roughly 12-14 hours. its just for me my top number after meals is no higher than 160 per doctor and with 2 numbers higher and one almost there a lot later than the meal should have affected it, it sort of scared me.

I know I have been debating if it really helped much or not. I was told sometimes it helps right away, sometimes the first one does not but next one does, and sometimes it never helps. I do know i got some little like water blisters(you know those little pinhead sized ones with like water in them...that I have gotten from various things). so that means those heat patches that you can stick on for 8 hours cant be done until that goes away. actually not where the heated pad would hit but where the sticky part would so will play that safe. But I know recently I have often put one on at work, and know I have even calculated when it was OK to put one on again at work(only to be used 8 hours out of 24). but it has to be a lot better because I have not been feeling the need for it. i think now its more at that achey level at worst whereas before at times i would get this horrid spasms like when you hit your funny bone. I did get one twinge like that yesterday at store when i reached to back of shelf to get something i wanted to buy. BUT even reaching 1/2 that far has made it spasm before .

Dr's advise was if I have same treatment again, just keep monitoring my numbers(which I would do anyway!!). so am happy she did not say dont do it again. of course she said that only after I had updated nurse that the numbers are back to normal.

I am somewhat frustrated that gardening is messed up big time, but I think i have enough big pots out since so far i have ONLY 2 early girl normal sized ones. I think last year the pepper plants were in the semi big containers and those were NOT a problem to move. at least i found some neat herbs to grow again, and those can go in smaller pots. it will seem very strange to have so few pots out. I do have a bunch of cherry and grape tomatoes and those mostly can go in smaller pots!!

i know every time i look at that dang WEED(okay sorta shrub WEED) i wanna trim it, but since i was using an old electric trimmer, i know i cant use it one handed. if i get much more desperate will maybe ask landlord if his son can trim it one time!! am tempted to say he could use my trimmer but its probably at least 20-25 years old without all the new safety features. so am not sure i trust a college kid to be cautious enough with it!!

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2003
Thu, 06-07-2007 - 7:45pm

I tried to answer you on my lunch hour but when i tried to enter it system burped and would not connect so I will try again!!

Since I moved here there have been at least 2-3 times I have fallen and wrenched my shoulder and each time I was able to tred carefully and recover on my own. this time it has just kept getting worse, so I was afraid i had torn rotator cuff or something that would not heal on its own. then I did see doctor, but that was about the time there was a problem with my blood pressure too and the shoulder sort of got lost along the way.
I know I should have just asked to get referral to PT but I did that one time before and the clinic messed up the coding and I had the insurance refusing to pay. But I think this time it should not be a battle since there is a clear injury and diagnosis. I was so happy when my doctor first said it was tendonitis and not rotator cuff tear or frozen shoulder. The PT I think suspects it might be more than just straight tendonitis and she did comment it was good to deal with it before the whole shoulder does freeze up.

My biggest problem in daily things to do is fixing my hair! Anyone seeing me do it has to wonder!! I have had to either lay on my side to allow right arm up to put hair into the ponytail which then gets wrapped so its more like a bun kind of style. But if I could not do it laying down I had to brace the right shoulder and arm against something or lean over on my desk to get the arm up there!! there is no way i could put in ponytail with one hand!! Think that has been the worst because even doing it that way, the shoulder would spasm although not as bad as if I tried to do it without bracing it. It has gotten enough better that I almost managed to do all of that this morning without having any sharp pain.

It does frustrate me about the pot garden but as long as i have some plants I think i will be satisfied. Usually by now I have gotten at least 4-5 flats of various plants. I only have 2 and the double impatients will go in the ground and most the other plants can go in midsize or smaller pots.

I really have to be grateful though or winter here was so strange there were a lot less times when i had to scrape windows on van either clearing snow, ice or frost. That is a challenge one armed and also slow going but much less painful than trying to use the right arm!