Physical Therapy and Range of Motion

I was thinking today about my goal to have my complete range of motion back by the end of this month. And I decided I don't think it is do-able. I don't see my physical therapist again until October 25th. And until then, I am supposed to concentrate on the exercises he has given me up to this point. There are a few that I haven't even started on yet. For example, I am not doing any stretches yet to allow my arm to go behind my back (say, scratching my back). I can barely put my hands on my hips!!

So, I think I need to re-assess my goal. I want to have complete range of motion in all the exercises that he has already given me. THAT, I think, is do-able. I will continue working on this.

Now, off to a bubble bath!!

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surgery updates -- 9 weeks and 4 weeks post op bicep tenodesis and SAD/DCLE

I am sore. I understand that the soft tissue in the body, after the trauma of surgery, takes months to heal. So I am definitely learning patience and determination.

It has been 9 weeks since my bicep tenodesis in my left shoulder. I know it takes 12 weeks for the bone to heal, and I am almost there, I can't wait! Only 3 more weeks!! Then I can start strengthening the bicep (I think!) Right now my arm is skinny and flat, looks like a child's arm (haha!) I am taking narcotics sparingly, and then religiously doing my stretching.

I am still in pain. For any of you reading this, and thinking about doing the surgery, or wondering what is going to happen when you have the surgery - -well, every body is different. I was in decent health and shape before my surgery. But, I am in a lot of pain now. I know the pain will go away, and it is better than it was a week ago, or two weeks ago, or a month ago. But it is a long, painful process. It will be worth it in the end, though. I have my ups and downs, but the downs don't seem to be as bad, and slowly getting better. It is no walk in the park, for sure.

In the mornings, I get out of bed in pain, and I think to myself "I don't remember it hurting this bad" and every morning I think the same thing, it is just that I went to bed without feeling the pain... and I wake up stiff and sore. Once I loosen up, do my physical therapy, put Soothanol X2 on, and ice it, I am fine.

I think the pain I should be more descriptive... it is really extreme soreness and tenderness, not jarring pain. But it is a lot of soreness and tenderness. Especially the days after I do the strengthening (I do those every other day). I do more weight on my right arm because it is only recovering from a SAD/DCE, and not the bicep tenodesis.

Another thing... my clavicle on my left side is much more prominent and tender than the one on my right side. I talked to the doc this morning (well, her P.A.) and mentioned it. She had called me back because I left a message requesting a doctor's note to bring my exercise wand on the plane with me, for my business trip next week. I called the TSA, and emailed them. They basically told me that any disabilities would be respected, but that the airport security has the final say in what I can and can't bring on the plane. The wand is only a 2' PVC pipe, weighing like 7 ounces. I suspect it could be used as a weapon, but my bags are really going to be checked in at the gate, (just not baggage claim)... not even on board with me. (regional plane). I use the wand for about an hour a day or more... for the various exercises morning and night. I don't want to mess my physical therapy up.

So... overall, I am healing. I am getting impatient though!!

I am still shooting for October 31st to regain full range of motion on my left arm. I don't know if I will succeed, but that is my goal. And if it takes longer, then so be it. But at least I have a goal to work toward. The hard ones for me are putting my arm behind my back, and also rotating my arm outward, when my elbow is tucked in to my side. But I am getting better!!!

Rescue of Chilean Miners

The tears keep coming to my eyes as I read about another miner being rescued and reunited with his family. I don't know why this is affecting me so drastically, I have been glued to the news (CNN) and rejoice inside after each rescue. When I watched the video of the first miner being re-united with his family, I was bawling like a baby. And I got chills seeing the second miner handing out rocks to the rescuers, so full of joy and happiness. I know that the emotions those miners were experiencing was pure joy. Loving life. It was fantastic. I would love to be able to feel that way every minute of every day.

And, I thank God for the safe rescue. Praise the Lord!! I have been praying for the miners and their families. Oh, how they have shown a huge amount of strength. I bet it was worse for the families above ground, than it was for the miners themselves. They are so strong. Welcome back to sea level, miners!!

Glad this past week is over and a new one is beginning

I have been very grumpy and moody this week, which is why I have been putting off writing. The pain is really bad in my shoulder, which really seems to encompass everything else in my life. And since I felt like I had the flu for over a week, I just figured out on Thursday night that I had a shingles outbreak. No fun. Of course, the nerve band affected goes around my left shoulder. Go figure. That most likely has been adding to my shoulder pain.

I don't know why I ever even had a shingles outbreak. I did have chicken pox when I was about 8 years old... and then my first shingles outbreak was in my early 20s. Boy did that hurt. Thankfully it is only on my left shoulder blade on my back. Steve has never had chicken pox so I need to be careful around him. Otherwise, I am getting better. But I still shouldn't get it, since I am an otherwise healthy adult!!

Ok, I started writing this 2 days ago, and now (Monday) am finishing it. Today is a much better day health wise / shoulder wise. I have a lot more mobility in my shoulder, it is amazing. I really feel it healing. I don't want to jinx anything, but 8 1/2 weeks after my bicep tenodesis, and I am doing pretty well.

I have to remember to NOT OVER DO IT! I don't want to mess anything up.

I also am afraid of getting addicted to my pain meds. So, what I am going to do is do one darvocet tonight, and then tomorrow night do none. Then the following night, a vicodin. Then the next night a darvocet again. So in any 3-day period, I am only taking 1 vicodin, and 1 darvocet. Then I will also trade off iboprofen and aleve during the day. And, keep icing!!

I am still doing stretches morning and night (the range of motion, etc). And every other day I am doing some strengthening. I think a lot of my soreness is stemming from my muscles after the strengthening. And, I am able to sleep better the past two nights. I just have to remember when I wake up in the middle of the night in pain, to move my arm, stretch it a bit, and then turn into a new position.

I will report again at the 9-week mark (which is really in just 3 days... since I waited so long for the 8-week update!!

Dog Poop Removal Service

The one thing I dislike about having dogs is cleaning up their poop. I gag. I dry heave. I run as far away as I can. I beg them to go poop in the woods so I don't have to clean up after them. Until I found a solution.

The first winter we had dogs, we went a whole 4 months without cleaning up after 3 large dogs. Boy was it a mess. I remember hearing years before from K102 DJs about a dog poop pickup service... so I searched, and sure enough, there were companies that performed this nasty chore!! So I called and requested pricing. The rates were averaging well over $200 for the "spring clean up" which I thought was a lot. Then, I called Poop911 (they were last on my list). A mere $50 for spring clean up!? WOW!! I told the person "but we have a large backyard and large dogs" and they stuck to their price. I was sold.

I have been with them ever since. I have them come out every 2 weeks, and it costs about $20 every 2 weeks.  And, my contact, Hugh, is very professional and nice! So, if you need a poop removal service, because you are an animal lover but you don't love poop... then give them a call! 1-877-POOP-911 is their number!

Weird dreams

I have been having weird dreams lately. They have been based on something I either discussed with another person the day before, or something I did, but then REALLY blown to extreme portions.... (i.e. I stopped to help a lady whose car stalled on the road yesterday and then my dream last night was of me riding around everywhere looking for people on the side of the road). I won't mention the other ones because they were even too weird for me and I am trying to block them out of my memory before I am too traumatized!!!

But I love that I am dreaming. I used to keep a dream journal and I saw patterns in my dreams -- I suspect messages my subconscious mind was telling me. Now, I just feel relieved I am getting enough sleep to be able to dream.

Honest Reviews

I was just thinking about a review I posted about Soothanol X2 a while back. It was not necessarily a positive review. The ad that I copied had inaccurate information -- the claims made were untrue. It claims to take away all your pain in just 45 seconds. When in fact, it took about 5 minutes to work, and it took away up to 75% of my pain. I hate ads that lie.

So... I also wrote that 75% pain relief was good enough for me. And that while I hated the advertisement for it, I was a proponent of the product.

My honest review has gotten a lot of people interested in Soothanol X2. Why? Well, my guess is that I tell it like it is. I don't sugar coat anything. When I talk about my detox foot pads I also am honest. If you are trying to get rid of a yeast infection, my detox foot pads will support a candida cleanse, but they will not do it all themselves. Many people think so. Unfortunately that is not the case :( But it gives me loyalty and trust with my customers.

The surgery I had on my shoulders -- it hurts big time. It is a LOT of work doing all the physical therapy. I am spending probably close to 2 hours a day doing stretches, strengthening, isometric, etc. (on the days where I do strengthening -- which is every other day). But I sincerely believe that if you aren't willing to go ahead and put the effort in re-habbing your shoulder, you should NOT have the procedure that I had done. It will be worth it for me, but it is awfully hard. And I am a hard worker. Extremely hard worker. And it is hard for me. If you are lazy, well, don't even bother.

Those are my thoughts for today. Weaknesses and honesty about issues is not necessarily a bad thing. It lets people know you are a real person.

Physical Therapy -- Is it worth it?

I used to ask myself whether physical therapy actually works. Here is my take on it:

There are a few different reasons for physical therapy (in my case). After chronic bursitis in my shoulders, along with rotator cuff tendinitis, bicep tendinitis, neural tension, dyskinesis, etc. All these issues became extremely painful to deal with. I had been going to a rolfer, acupuncturist, 3 different modalities of chiropractic, massage therapy, gua sha, etc. They seemed to help temporarily. But my quality of life was sorely affected. Finally, I was referred to a physical therapist.

There are many different types of physical therapists. One clinic I saw before, was Physicians Neck and Back Clinic. They used the Med-X (sp?) machines -- isolating your muscles and strengthening them. They have a pretty good success rate. But it wasn't for me. It caused me more pain (as it wasn't treating the problem and only focused on the back -- and they call my upper back "the neck" which bugged me, since in between my shoulder blades is NOT my neck). As it turns out the extreme pain in between my shoulder blades was affected by my rotator cuff -- it is all connected and I don't know how, but I will accept that is the case and move on (I am not in the medical field so I trust them on this).

I then went to a physical therapist's regiment of stretching and strengthening the right muscles... my rotator cuff muscles which are the sub scapularis, teres minor, infraspinadus and supraspinadus. I may have spelled some of those wrong. But strengthening those and stretching really did help my range of motion and my strength. But the pain did not go away, and it was on both shoulders. My right shoulder did have a very good result, it used to be the most painful of the two, but as it healed and consistently ranked on a pain scale, only 3-4 out of 10, it did not stay my biggest problem. My biggest problem was now my left shoulder. (This was also after getting a cortisone shot in both shoulders, it worked for a while, but then wore off).

Since I had been doing physical therapy on my shoulders for over 6 months by this time, and the pain was not gone, THEN, as a last resort, we decided to opt for surgery. By now I was seeing an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in shoulders.

Physical therapy was EXTREMELY important BEFORE surgery for a couple reasons:

1) There was a chance it could have worked -- therefore avoiding surgery!
2) It strengthened my muscles so that recovery AFTER surgery would be a LOT easier.

But, you have to remember that this is homework - - you can't NOT do your exercises and stretches. You have to be consistent and  do them frequently. Sure, it takes time. Right now I am spending about an hour and a half every day, total, on stretches and range of motion. Before my surgery I was spending at least 45 minutes on them.

So, now that we know the importance of trying physical therapy BEFORE surgery, let's talk about AFTER surgery.

This is very important. Even more so than before surgery. You have to be committed to this, or I suggest not even bothering with surgery and sticking with pain pills for the rest of your life.

I will use myself as an example. I had SAD (decompression surgery) and DCE (Distal Clavicle Excision) on both shoulders. Those are pretty simple processes and heal quickly. Basically, they remove your bursa, cut out any bone spurs, and cut off the end of your clavicle. Soreness can remain for months, but on my right shoulder (I am not even 2 weeks post op right now) I have full range of motion, and no "pain" -- just tenderness and soreness as a result of my bone being cut off, and my bursa removed. I expect soreness for the next month or so, going away gradually. Then, I will be 100% better in my right shoulder. Currently I am using my right arm to carry any heavy stuff I have to carry.

Almost seven weeks ago I had the SAD and DCE on my left shoulder (the bad shoulder) but along with that, I had a bicep tenodesis. They removed the longhead bicep tendon, and re-attached the little stub that was left, to my humerous bone. THAT was major surgery. As a result, I was in a sling for 4 weeks. I could only do basic pendulum and isometric exercises, and then the wand exercises a few weeks afterward. (Wand exercises ROCK for range of motion, by the way). Because of this, many of my muscles in this shoulder atrophied, and I lost a LOT of range of motion. Besides, my shoulder is still so weak I cannot hold my arm above my head for any length of time yet. So.. here is where physical therapy comes in. I seriously was afraid of getting a frozen shoulder. So I did my pendulum exercises from day one, although they hurt and weren't the most comfortable to do.

So the first reason why you need to do physical therapy for shoulders after your surgery is to avoid getting a frozen shoulder. The second main reason is that you can heal properly. I was told by my surgeon that the first month at least, after my surgery, would be worse than the pain before my surgery. I am now through that period, and the main pain associated with all this, is the soreness I am getting from my physical therapy. I started doing more stretching exercises, to get my range of motion back. There are some motions where it is SO painful I feel like my bone is breaking. But I am working through that. Every day, as I do my physical therapy, I go to the point of almost wanting to cry. Some days I think I am regressing. But overall, I can see how much farther I am able to stretch, and how much easier it is. Even if it is just a centimeter farther. That is improvement. It is slow going. I was told this would take 3-6 months MINIMUM. And strengthening really doesn't start until after 8 weeks... of course actually living it vs. just being told what to expect, is very different.. I wasn't prepared for the difficulty that physical therapy has become.

And, each time I am given new exercises, to do along with the previous exercises, I wonder where I am going to find time to incorporate it all into my hectic schedule. Luckily I have found that I can do some at work, in my office, while I am on a conference call or on a webinar, or during lunch or break. Sometimes it also feels like I go 3 steps forward just to take 2 steps backward. But I AM coming along.

I also sometimes regret not doing these physical therapy exercises sooner, I look back and figure maybe I didn't really need to be in a sling for 4 weeks... letting my muscles atrophy. But the more I read about a bicep tenodesis I realize that I NEED to allow my bone to heal. There are two screws holding the muscle in place right now. A fall or an accident or me trying to lift something heavy when I am not ready, could ruin the whole surgery and give me a tenotomy (where they just cut the tendon and you end up with a popeye bicep). That would be very bad. I am about 5 weeks away from when I am considered a "successful healing". (It takes 12 weeks for the bone to heal, they told me). I am glad I didn't screw it up.

So, while I am still in physical therapy, and have been for the past 8 months straight, I am very thankful for my decision to continue with it. DON'T GIVE UP. LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY. If they tell you to ice your injury 2-3 times per day, then DO it!! Icing sucks in Minnesota in the winter time, for sure. But Thankfully it has been warm this past summer, and by the time winter comes along I plan on being healed :)

My goals are to be fully healed in my right shoulder by the end of October. There is a ligament on the top of your shoulder that attaches the acromium and the clavicle... well, that might be sore for up to 6 months, I was told!! Sore or tender... but I already feel so much better I am thinking that will be completely gone by October. That will be 6 weeks for my right shoulder. Then I can start some strength training for all my shoulder and upper back muscles!!

My goal for my left shoulder is to have complete range of motion back by the end of October. I know that is almost 5 weeks away, and seems so far out, but I have to have goals that I can accomplish. And, since I will be starting some simple strengthening exercises, I think I will be able to do a lot more with it by then as well (i.e. carrying bags of groceries, etc). Then, by December 23rd, I want to be considered fully healed so that I can start strength training, kickboxing if I want, etc. That also is the day that I leave for my Panama vacation, and I want to be able to kayak, etc. That is almost 4 1/2 months from my surgery, and it is 100% do-able!

Yes. Physical therapy is worth it. In just a few more short months, I am going to be pain-free -- a total different quality of life. I am so excited about it. Lots of peaks and valleys throughout the process, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.