Taking its toll
Yesterday should have been a fairly easy day for me at work. I drove a little over two and a half hours then had to fill up a CO2 tank and off load two Nitrogen cylinders at a Ruby Tuesday's. I didn't know the cylinders would be the demise of my easy day. I was actually driving the truck with the lift gate which makes loading and unloading cylinders much easier than the other truck without such luxuries. But apparently I'm still not back to full capacity body wise to be lugging around heavy a$$ cylinders.
By the time I was ready to crawl back into the cab and head off to the next three out of the whopping 4 stops I had to make for the day I could barely move to do so. Sitting was more painful than standing and my back was SCREAMING in pain. I'd apparently heaved and hoed a little to much on those cylinders and jacked something up worse than ever.
I've had a sore spot on my mid-left side of my back that my chiropractor said was probably just a muscle that had been affected by my sitting around doing nothing but healing for two weeks. And apparently I pissed that muscle off really good yesterday doing all that manual labor. I was in an abundance of pain for the rest of the day. Even breathing hurt.
When evening rolled around it wasn't feeling any better I decided to break into the prescription pain medicine I had from my initial injury earlier this month. I hate taking medicine like that, but I was seriously doubting my ability to even fall asleep because of the discomfort I was dealing with. So in go the pills and out goes the Gi-Gi. It only took about 40 minutes before I was looped and ready to pour myself into bed.
I slept great and woke feeling amazing, until I tried to sit up. The pain was still there. I managed to get up, get moving and properly caffeinate myself and then shower. I had two appointments today I needed to see to. One with the shoulder surgeon and the other, conveniently, with my chiropractor.
First let me say that the surgeon appointment went well. Turns out I've got what they are calling bicipital tendinitis. Apparently the tendon is inflamed and causing a raucous which is in turn causing me the pain and aching I've had for a few years. Each time I injure it acutely like I did last month at work it makes the inflammation worse and takes longer each time to heal. From what I understood, each subsequent injury to that area will make the situation worse and worse until one day it will cause additional problems.
But the good news is that for right now, no surgery. He suggested we start with an at home therapy regimen and see how that helps. By strengthening the overall shoulder it should help with preventing additional acute injuries. So that's what I'm gonna do for now. Should that not help and the problem gets worse, he can do a simple surgical procedure where he will go in and detach the tendon from it's natural place and tack it down to another spot to keep it from getting inflamed as much by normal wear and tear.
I prefer to hold off on surgery for as long as possible. So that's my decision for now.
Now on to the chiropractic visit. Ahhh, I just love massage therapy. And after jacking things up in my back good yesterday, it was an even better day to be getting it done. Ms. Magical Fingers found the spots where I was having the most trouble and worked them pretty good. It was amazing how afterwards my pain scale rating dropped dramatically from a 7 to about a 4. Then the doctor adjustment me and it dropped another point to 3. So right now, feeling pretty good.
More good news which gives me something to look forward to is that I only have four more shifts left with my current job. Sunday through Wednesday and I'm done with hard labor. I can hardly wait. Although, honestly I don't plan to over exert myself in any form over those four days. I already warned my boss that I was gonna probably just be a lazy git all week. All I need is the 40 hours worth of paycheck. The rest, can bite me. This job has really took a toll on my body, I'm not giving it anything more.
By the time I was ready to crawl back into the cab and head off to the next three out of the whopping 4 stops I had to make for the day I could barely move to do so. Sitting was more painful than standing and my back was SCREAMING in pain. I'd apparently heaved and hoed a little to much on those cylinders and jacked something up worse than ever.
I've had a sore spot on my mid-left side of my back that my chiropractor said was probably just a muscle that had been affected by my sitting around doing nothing but healing for two weeks. And apparently I pissed that muscle off really good yesterday doing all that manual labor. I was in an abundance of pain for the rest of the day. Even breathing hurt.
When evening rolled around it wasn't feeling any better I decided to break into the prescription pain medicine I had from my initial injury earlier this month. I hate taking medicine like that, but I was seriously doubting my ability to even fall asleep because of the discomfort I was dealing with. So in go the pills and out goes the Gi-Gi. It only took about 40 minutes before I was looped and ready to pour myself into bed.
I slept great and woke feeling amazing, until I tried to sit up. The pain was still there. I managed to get up, get moving and properly caffeinate myself and then shower. I had two appointments today I needed to see to. One with the shoulder surgeon and the other, conveniently, with my chiropractor.
First let me say that the surgeon appointment went well. Turns out I've got what they are calling bicipital tendinitis. Apparently the tendon is inflamed and causing a raucous which is in turn causing me the pain and aching I've had for a few years. Each time I injure it acutely like I did last month at work it makes the inflammation worse and takes longer each time to heal. From what I understood, each subsequent injury to that area will make the situation worse and worse until one day it will cause additional problems.
But the good news is that for right now, no surgery. He suggested we start with an at home therapy regimen and see how that helps. By strengthening the overall shoulder it should help with preventing additional acute injuries. So that's what I'm gonna do for now. Should that not help and the problem gets worse, he can do a simple surgical procedure where he will go in and detach the tendon from it's natural place and tack it down to another spot to keep it from getting inflamed as much by normal wear and tear.
I prefer to hold off on surgery for as long as possible. So that's my decision for now.
Now on to the chiropractic visit. Ahhh, I just love massage therapy. And after jacking things up in my back good yesterday, it was an even better day to be getting it done. Ms. Magical Fingers found the spots where I was having the most trouble and worked them pretty good. It was amazing how afterwards my pain scale rating dropped dramatically from a 7 to about a 4. Then the doctor adjustment me and it dropped another point to 3. So right now, feeling pretty good.
More good news which gives me something to look forward to is that I only have four more shifts left with my current job. Sunday through Wednesday and I'm done with hard labor. I can hardly wait. Although, honestly I don't plan to over exert myself in any form over those four days. I already warned my boss that I was gonna probably just be a lazy git all week. All I need is the 40 hours worth of paycheck. The rest, can bite me. This job has really took a toll on my body, I'm not giving it anything more.
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