Pain, Physical Health & Writing

[SlickTony]

A couple of weeks ago I messed up my shoulder learning a new technique in Taekwondo, and since then I have been in chronic pain. In addition to that, two of my fingers are numb. Fortunately, the injury has not disabled me to the point where I can't work--in fact, typing bunches of stuff about mortgages, warranty deeds, judgments, liens and miscellaneous documents helps take my mind off of it, almost to where I can't feel it. However, when I am not working, it really bothers me. I have to be deeply in sleep before I can get away from it. I've had to have sleeping pills. When I wake up, whether from having to go to the bathroom or the alarm clock ringing, I have a few seconds of grace before the pain wakes up. What's worse, it has permeated all my waking life so that I can't concentrate on any erotic thoughts. Needless to say, my sex life and my writing have suffered mightily.

Who else has had this problem and what did you do to cope?

 

[Guest]

Tony, I'm sorry to hear about this. There is much being done in the field of "pain management" these days. Here are a couple sites. Unless you've been given a definite timeframe for release of the pain, I suggest looking into special care. Best to you,

Perdita

pain.com

url list

medicinenet.com

Mayo Clinic

managing pain

 

[Guest]

Tony -

I can share with you that emotional pain prevented me from writing anything for almost six months. (And I still can't quite get back into my rhythm.)

I hope you can find relief, perhaps from one of 'dita's mentioned sites. Until your pain is managed it will (obviously) dominate your every waking thought making writing an impossibility.

Hope you are feeling better soon -

 

[Boota]

I've been in pretty much constant pain for years, so I really just ignore it for the most part now.

That said, a little over a year ago I had shoulder surgery for a torn rotator cuff. I was off of work for three months, so I figured it would be a great time to write. It just took a week or so to get to where I could sit in one position long enough to get anything done. The best part was that when I was writing I didn't feel any of the pain, I was absorbed with my characters and story.

I am firmly against taking any sorts of pills. Even aspirin. But the pain got to be so much from my surgery and injury that I decided to take one, just to hopefully get some sleep. I was given Lortabs with a little bit of a kicker pill that I don't remember the name of. They didn't work at all. Not only did the pain not abate, but I was wider awake then I was before taking the pills.

I used to fight for a living, which with a Taekwondo injury you might relate to, so one thing I have learned to do to manage pain is meditation and refocusing the pain. It works.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Just what did you do, Tony? Is is a muscle thing or nerves or bone or just a deep bruise? Have you seen an MD? The best way to deal with pain is to fix the problem that's causing it. "Messed up" is not much of a diagnosis.

---dr.M.

 

[bearlee]

I have pain, mostly in my fingers and hands all the time. It's from MS. I don't take anything although the doctors have been bugging me about for a few years now. I agree with Boota though, you just learn to live with it and many times it's not even noticeable(except as I type this because I'm thinking about it). Refocus, or meditation if that what he means, really does work-usually.

On the other hand, dr_mabeuse makes the best point I've seen. Go to a doctor and with any luck, you'll find out the problem and how to treat it.

Best to you

 

[SlickTony]

Thanks everybody for your responses. I have been to four doctors. The first one I went to, I had somehow forgotten about the incident in TKD that led to the injury, so she really didn't have enough info to go on WRT diagnosing my pain. She saw all the scratches that Doc, my shoulder-riding cat, had put on my shoulders, and thought perhaps it might be cat-scratch fever, although I pointed out that Doc had been a member of our family since the week before Christmas, so if it was cat-scratch fever it ought to have come on sooner. She prescribed for me an anti-inflammatory drug but nothing else.

In answer to your question, Dr. M, I hyperextended my shoulder in the course of learning a new self-defense technique that involves twisting someone's arm up their back. In class, we're paired up and we practice on each other, and when any particular technique gets you twisted up in any way, you're supposed to "tap out" to let your opponent know that you've had enough. When I was younger I used to be able to join my hands and put my arms right over my back and bring them down and step through them--I was really loose-jointed in the shoulders. Nowadays I can't do that any more, although I was able to right up into my 40s. Since then excess poundage, a touch of osteoarthritis, and--since I started working out--increased muscle development in my back and shoulders--have gotten in the way. The loose-jointedness led to my being able to have my arm twisted up my back a little further than most other people. I should have tapped out sooner than I did.

That first visit was on a Friday. On Sunday I was hurting more, and so I went to the same McClinic I'd gone to before (I got to an acute care clinic if I need a doctor on nights, weekends or sooner than I can get an appointment with my regular clinic). I was seen by another doctor, and by that time I had remembered what I had done that I believed had brought on the shoulder pain. He had my x-rayed, which revealed nothing, and gave me a prescription for some pain pills.

I had made an appointment at my regular clinic where my PCP is, for Wednesday, which I kept. I was seen by a third doctor, who heads up that clinic, although I hadn't ever been seen by him before--I'd seen two of his colleagues, one for a physical the previous year, and another one when I had a bout of sinusitis that kept me home from work for two days (highly unusual for me). He indentified the muscles that had been hyperexteded and the nerve plexus that had been involved. He complimented me for getting as far as blue belt in TKD (he didn't say, at my age) and said I should be better in another week. He advised me to treat the affected area with cold packs.

The next day I went to my TKD class and explained to my instructors about my back or shoulder injury and they said that this kind of sports injury sometimes happened and I should bow out of anything that was hurting me or that I felt I couldn't do. They also told everyone I was working out with to be gentle with me.

That Friday, I was in such pain that I was continually on the edge of tears, and something else had happened that alarmed me: my index and middle fingers had become numb, the way one's hand sometimes does if you sleep on your arm all night. I tried to get in to see the doctor at my regular clinic on the way home from work, but the office said that they'd seen their last patient and offered me Monday. I said never mind and stopped at the McClinic. where I was seen by the fourth doctor. He gave me prescriptions for stronger everything that I'd been prescribed before, and a referral for physical therapy. I have an appointment at Brooks Rehab on Monday.

I am feeling somewhat better today. The pain has gone back to being in my right upper back, instead of all the way down my arm as well. However, my fingers are still numb. It makes sorting out documents a very weird-feeling experience. So ever if I am feeling better on Monday I am not going to break the appointment at Brooks--I want to make sure everything's OK.

 

[SeaCat]

Pain let's youknow you're alive, but,,,,

If you are in chronic pain from an injury get it checked out. Go to you're normal doc. and let him know what's going on. From the sound of it you may have bruised or otherwise damaged your brachial plexus. Have you're doc check it out. As for dealing with chronic pain, well there are ways to deal with it without drugs, but this takes a bit of practice and meditation. (I find that during meditation, picturing the pain as something solid, putting it in a box, closing the box, and putting it away helps.) BTW I have been dealing with chronic pain since Iwas 16. (Drunk driver piled me up.) I have had numerouse injuries since then, many of them involving chronic pain. You can live with, and even deal with it. Good luck and let us know how this works out.

SeaCat

 

[SlickTony]

I'm looking forward to seeing what the physical therapy session is like--I've never had one.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

If you've got numbness in your fingers from a shoulder injury then it sounds to me like you've probably injured a nerve, maybe bruised it. Good news is it should get better. Bad news is it can take 3-6 months. At least that's been my experience.

Personally, I'm pretty much a total baby when it comes to dealing with pain. I head for the drugs with no compunction whatsoever. Ibuprofen is better than aspirin or acetominophen for muscle/joint pain. I'm surprised your doctor told you to put cold on it. Cold is used right after an injury to keep the swelling down. After that they usually advise heat to keep the muscles loose and bring blood tothe area.

A few ideas: I had back spasms once so severe that the only way I could get around the house was lying over a rolling desk chair and pushing myself with my toes (I didn't go very far). The thing that finally helped me the most (besides time) was a $20 vibrating massager from the drugstore. (No wisecracks, please) Of course, those were muscle spasms, but it was amazing how well that worked.

You might consider a chiropracter, who I've heard can work wonders on back injuries, especially on ones that most MD's just dismiss. Most MD's pretty much shrug off back injuries because there's just not much they can do about them. Chiropracters make their bread and butter off treating untreatable conditions.

If not that, maybe consider an acupuncturist. My wife had some pretty bad shoulder pain due to arthritis, and an acupuncturist made her pain free in a couple of session. The pain's coming back now, but that was six months ago, and the results were really pretty damned miraculous. I think the sessions cost like $30.

---dr.M.

 

[SlickTony]

All your ideas sound good, Dr. M. I prefer heat to treat this problem--it feels better. I have a heating pad upstairs that I have to share with the Abyssinian cat, who recently had abdominal surgery (she swallowed 3+ ft. of blind cord, passed one foot of it, couldn't pass the rest, and had to have the rest surgically removed, $7.00+, ow, ow) and a little buckwheat pillow I can nuke. When I used to have lumbar trouble all the time, there was a good chiropractor I used to go to, who unfortunately is not on my current plan. I've heard good things about acupuncture too.