eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 04:48pm on 2003-07-16

I'm still in a lot of pain but I'm feeling much better than yesterday or the day before. Thanks in large part to [livejournal.com profile] anniemal's ministrations (and her nagging me not to use my right arm).

Despite the fact that I've been looking forward to it for two or three years and had been really counting on going, I don't think I'm going to be able to go to ConCertino this weekend in Massachusetts. I know that there are people I'd told I would be there, month ago when I expected to be able to manage it, but my money situation is even worse than usual. I can't afford a hotel room, I can't afford a membership, I can't afford to pay my share of gas and tolls to get up there and back, and what financial help might be coming my way in the next few days really has to go to overdue bills and prescription drugs if it happens at all. I am seriously bummed about this. There are people I wanted to see, whom I see far too seldom. I wanted to catch Urban Tapestry. There are people I do see once in a while but don't get to play music with often enough. And it's just been too long since I've really sat down and immersed myself in the world of filk music. So I am sad. And frustrated, and annoyed, but mostly sad. It would upset me less if I hadn't been assuming I'd be able to go for so long.

I did not in fact make it to 3LF rehearsal last night. I was in too much pain to play guitar or recorder, as well as being exhausted. Anniemal did eventually drag me to the grocery store late last night (which reminds me -- I still need to figure out why my car's taillights don't work), and the motion of the car greatly upset my right shoulder. So we figured I probably should've worn a sling. In the store, I tucked my wrist through my camera strap for a makeshift sling. It helped. No, I don't have any idea how I wrecked my shoulder. As far as I can tell, it's "just the fibromyalgia". *grumble* It hurts. Most of the time there is no comfortable position I can put it in; when there is a comfortable position, eventually the rest of my body gets tired and wants to move, and then my shoulder hurts again.

So with the shoulder pain, HCB rehearsal tonight is going to be ... challenging. (That was the other reason for skipping 3LF -- knowing that tonight's HCB rehearsal is important, and wanting to give myself the best possible odds of being able to deal with it.) We're running through the proposed sets for our second CD, and recording them so we can listen later and figure out what changes we want to make to the arrangements before we record them for real. So it's important that we all be there to play our parts, and it won't be good for me to do a half-assed job on mine. The really good news is that at least it's a wee step beyond mere conversation towards actually making the damned album. We really should've started working on it about six months after we started selling the first one.

Now to try to get some of the things done that I haven't managed to do for the past several days, before I have to run off to rehearsal (and the nail salon -- one of the acrylic bits on my strumming hand came off Sunday evening), without making myself too tired to play decently at rehearsal or hurting my arm. I'll probably post another journal entry sometime this afternoon or tonight; I've got one that's been in the works a while. And I need to tell people how to send me money to help with upkeep of the cat.

Music:: the box fan near my desk
Mood:: pain
There are 7 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] scarlettj9.livejournal.com at 08:41pm on 2003-07-16
Send me an e-mail with your address, I have a sling for your arm that I can mail to you. Hope it doesn't hurt too much.

Huggs

ScarlettJ9@comcast.net
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 11:58pm on 2003-07-16
I've actually got a generic canvas sling, but neither of us had thought of it until the vibration of the car got to me. When we got back to my house, I put on the sling to remind myself not to lift groceries with that arm while putting things away.

I had it with me tonight for band practice, but wound up not using it because I borrowed anniemal's car, which is a stick shift, so it got in the way while driving; and I needed my arm free for the rehearsal itself to play guitar. I think I'm going to have to wear it the next couple of days though.

Thanks.
 
posted by [identity profile] doubleplus.livejournal.com at 10:21am on 2003-07-17
Have you had a frozen shoulder before? Terilee's had it two or three times, and it sounds like this could be that. I'll try to remember to ask her to look at your description; she (obviously) remembers the symptoms better than I do.

She'll also remember the treatment. In my vague recollection, it was anti-inflammatories, heat, and stretches to loosen it up, but I'll check and make sure.
 
posted by [identity profile] anniemal.livejournal.com at 09:08pm on 2003-07-17
Tell me anything you can. Between sleep cycle junk and the fibro, I'm fishing for hints to try to add to my chances of getting things set as a'right as may be.
 
posted by [identity profile] doubleplus.livejournal.com at 10:40pm on 2003-07-17
If you have limited mobility in addition to large amounts of pain, it could be frozen shoulder, which is basically the muscles are so much in spasm that you can't move them. The sling helping also fits. Nothing in your description contradicts this diagnosis, but there are probably other things it could be, too.

First: Make the shower as hot as you can stand it, and run it on the shoulder and shoulder blade, for ten minutes or more. You may not notice any improvement until afterwards, so do it longer than you think you need to. :-)

Before you cool down from the shower, there are two exercises.

1. Rest your good hand on the back of a chair. Let the bad arm hang, and move it in *slow*, small circles, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. Then switch off and do the good arm, for balance.

2. Interlace fingers in front of you, but relax arms and don't try to straighten elbows. Slowly raise up arms in front of you, as far as you can comfortably go. The goal is to raise them above your head, but obviously you won't get there for a while.

When the shoulder is at its worst, repeat this process up to three times a day.

If you can, see a rheumatologist or acupuncturist, and get a trigger-point injection or acupuncture. Terilee's didn't go away entirely until she got trigger-point injections, but the heat and exercises give quite a bit of relief.
 
posted by [identity profile] anniemal.livejournal.com at 06:46am on 2003-07-18
I'm not sure what I'm working with on D'Glenn. I did a bunch of range-of-motion things and passive stretches, worked a bit of shiatsu, and wanted to try the acupuncture/shiatsu-oriented portable hand-held TENS unit, but we got our sleep noncycles screwed up, and I kept needing to guard her sleep instead of working actively.
I am familiar with acupuncture, love but can't quite afford it, but what are trigger point injections? I had a few classes in trigger points, and am used to the concept of pain ramifying, but have never heard of injections. What is it that gets injected? I may be out of date. I'm a non-invasive worker where skin is the physical boundary.
Thanks for the info. I wish you and Terilee the best of fortunes. Finding practical help is tough.
 
posted by [identity profile] doubleplus.livejournal.com at 07:23am on 2003-07-21
Terilee says the trigger-point injections were lidocain and something else, but she can't remember what. Doing what you need to get good sleep (painkillers or whatever) is also important; she mentioned that when I was asking her about treatment, but I didn't get it down.

This seems to be a pretty good description of it. I found other descriptions on the web which claim that it takes months to develop, lasts for months, and then takes months to go away, which doesn't really fit with our experience (certainly not the 'months to develop' part.) Of course, with medical info on the web, it's always hard to judge whether they know what they're talking about.

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