History of my neck/shoulder pain

Ok folks it's been a lengthy journey. I'm sure I've forgotten bits and pieces but I think this is main gist of the issues I've experienced with my shoulder. It doesn't feel like it, but it has been more than a couple of years of me dealing with issues with my left shoulder. Hell, my very first post on this blog was about me recovering from a partial thickness tear in my supraspinatus.  That was in 2008, FIVE YEARS AGO. That post was titled "hopefully short road to recovery"


Twice in my life I’ve had small partial thickness tears of the supraspinatus, first in high school during wrestling and again shortly after joining crossfit in May '08. Did physical therapy for both and seemed to make a full recovery.  As I got back into Crossfit I developed tendonitis in the shoulder. Learned about self-massage with a tennis/lacrosse ball, and finally fixed that.  Still had issues with tension in my neck, would crack my neck countless times throughout the day. Would also always sleep on my left side, with my shoulder compressed pretty much up to my ear. I also experienced some pain on the inside of the shoulder blade, but when I went hunting with a lacrosse ball I never seemed to really find it.  I also learned through seeing a chiro that my first and sometimes second ribs were almost always out of joint. 

Came across the Kstar Mwod that talked about stretching out the scalenes and how they can cause referred pain on the inside of the shoulder.  Started massaging the scalenes and that helped a lot; without the scalenes pulling on my ribs all the time they stopped being out of joint. However, it seemed like I was having to massage them all the time.  Learned I am tricep dominant (weird right?) and sleeping on my side was shortening/tightening all of my muscles. Eventually taught myself to sleep only on my back and things got considerably better, but still had a lot of discomfort.  I learned about hanging from a bar to help stretch things out.   With the hanging from the bar I could feel the adhesions in my neck tearing and eventually everything learned to stay loose and supple.  This stretch seemed to also help loosen up my tricep and chest.

It is at about this time I started to notice that I when I woke up I would experience temporary numbness in both of my ring fingers and pinky’s. Learned this was from my C7-T1 being out of whack almost constantly. Got some prolotherapy to tighten up everything and now I no longer have the numbness, but I still have the discomfort inside of my shoulder blade.  After seeing a massage therapist I learned that the pain I’m experiencing is coming from a super tight Rhomboid. He tried releasing it first but it would not budge. So after a while he gave up and released my scalenes, then my tricep, and then the rhomboid released “almost too easily”.  This granted relief for like two weeks, but my rhomboid slowly tightened back up.  According to the massage therapist it seemed like the tricep and rhomboid were playing tug of war.  This thought led me to start thingking these muscles are tightening up in order to try to protect some joint, but what joint or why I wasn't sure.

Saw a physical therapist for it and although there were some exercises that helped some, it did nothing to help the tricep and rhomboid relax.  I even told my PT I thought there might be some damage to the shoulder joint, causing the muscles to tighten up, and he told me that everything looked strong so that was unlikely. I finally decided to see a Physician's Assistant and after some tests he ordered an MRI with an arthogram. That proved that I have a laberal tear in the back of my shoulder, probably from an injury I got in high school.

So now I know what is going on, and the question is what am I going to do about it.  I am going to ask Dr. Hauser a ton of questions, and perhaps go the prolotherapy route since it helped out my hip so much. But for now, I'm just going to have to grin and bear it while I move to Dallas.

MRI Results

Well, looks like I have a tear in the back of the labrum in my left shoulder.  ...Having a tear in the back is fairly rare, but I think I know the exact moment of when it happened.  I was on the wrestling team in high school, and during practice I was slammed into the mat, shoulder first, so hard that I cracked my collar bone.  Upon that impact, the head of the humerus slammed into the labrum and caused the tear/damage.

It's not that severe, and obviously I can do a lot with it. I just have super tight muscles that hurt sometimes.  I don't think surgery is really a good option, so I'm going to try to do some physical therapy and then if that doesn't help maybe do some prolo.  It's a hassle since Dr. Hauser lives in Chicago and I am moving to Dallas, but I will be going back up there for the wife's family.

It's late so I'm not going to review the path that led me to this place, I'll do that tomorrow, but it is really, really nice to finally have an answer for everything. Now hopefully I can do something about it.

Needles, Needles, Needles!!!

Ok so yesterday I had an arthogram on my shoulder. Right now, my shoulder is feeling… different, and not in a good way. Maybe a little looser in the socket? It’s like the arthogram awoke something wrong in my shoulder, now it clicks every once in a while when it didn’t before. The joint is super sore in the back area near the lat, completely opposite of where the injection site was. I cannot wait to see what the results will tell.

So I got a big injection yesterday, and today for my groin I tried dry needling for the first time.  Dry needling is similar to acupuncture, except they just stick the needles where the knots are.  Going in my hip/groin was feeling better than it ever has, so I was a little worried I was just wasting my time.  That turned out to be a needless concern.  When he worked on my groin it caused all kinds of… sensations. Like it felt kind of like a cramp, kind of like a shock of electricity. It was also an extremely specific like it was just a single strand of pain, the diameter of a iPhone connector cable, shooting up from my knee to my hip.  Highly foreign, and highly uncomfortable.  The PT told me that the sensations indicate that the procedure is being effective.  If that's the case I really needed this.

Afterwards it still felt like there were needles in me, but when the PT tested my range of motion it was pretty ridiculous how much more I could open my leg.  It still feels... strange, but I am to keep stretching it and hopefully it will get a whole lot better.

I also got my allergy injections today, so there’s another case of me being stuck by a needle.

Also, if this shoulder thing proves to be a torn labrum, I’m probably going to go the route of prolotherapy again.  That, as you know, means even more needles.  I wish I were more comfortable around them, but even if you’ve been stuck as often as I have, it’s still no fun. But if it makes the pain go away, then I’m all for it.

MRI for shoulder, done

So went in for the MRI/arthogram today. The Dr. had some issues getting the contrast into my shoulder joint, but the dude was an artist, only felt pressure, no pain. It was weird though knowing he was rooting around with a needle inside my shoulder joint.  Perhaps he had trouble getting the needle into the shoulder joint for the same reason they had issues getting the needle into my hip joint: the joint was super tight. The Dr. didn’t say that was the reason, but it would make sense if that were the case.  I see the PA on Friday, and he’ll go over the results with me. I can’t wait.

The should felt a little strange after wards, but in a couple of hours I was in the gym working bench press, got a new (calculated) 1RM with 11 reps of 185#, pretty happy with the 531 system.

Another Labral tear????

Well, I finally saw someone to figure out what is wrong with my shoulder.  …I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve seen many, many Dr.’s about my shoulder. But as I sit here and think about it, I am not so sure.  So I saw a PA today and we did all kinds of tests.  After passing quite a few, he then gave me one where I had to resist pressure with both arms.  My right arm resisted, and my left arm went straight down. Like, I couldn’t muster any strength at all.  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” He tried a couple more tests, all of which I failed.

He told me these all point to having some damage to the labrum in the shoulder.

Really?  Really? Another laberal tear???

We are going to confirm with an MRI with arthogram.  It was funny, having the PA explain to me what the labrum is as well as an arthogram. …Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so familiar with this stuff.

I have no idea if this comes from my time with crossfit and its dangerous kipping pull ups, or it could have come from wrestling or whatever. This kind of damage can happen slowly over time, and I think that is what happened to me. Whatever the case, I am looking forward to getting the MRI and following that a real diagnosis.

Interestingly enough, I might decide to go back to Dr. Hauser for more prolo, this time on the shoulder. I’m pretty darn sure the situation isn’t dire enough to warrant surgery, at least not surgery without trying prolotherapy first. We’ll see how this works out.

I just want to know what is going on, so I can start fixing it.

If you want something done right...

So about 1-2 years ago during all these massages, physical therapy, prolotherapy and God knows what else I've done to my hip I've felt some nagging discomfort in what I felt was right near the inguinal crease.  I kept thinking that was the psoas, but once I got the prolo and the psoas died down I realized there was something else going on.  I would sit on a softball for a bit and that seemed to help.  I would tell this to Bobby, and I've told it to other massage therapists as well, and even my pt.  They all responded with nodding their head as if they understood, but after the treatment I would still feel whatever it was that I was feeling.

I have no idea why it took this long, but the other day I thought to myself, "you know, why don't I just try to release the knots myself without the softball?" So I tried, and oh my Lord I came across some serious knots.  I tried some home made graston with a butter knife and some massage oil and the area felt like it was gravel.  ...In graston, the metal picks up the knots of facia as rough spots.  That gravelly area was rougher than anything I've ever felt before.  So it seems like there is this patch on my thigh that has been completely ignored, allowing for all kinds of knots to develop.  And I'm left here thinking why the hell no one else has worked on this area???  I guess I understand, I mean is seems to be my pectinues, it's on the innermost part of my thigh. But seriously?  Perhaps that's not the reason, perhaps it's just a really odd spot to have knots.  I don't know. All I know is that I've figured out yet another piece to this puzzle and am really, really happy for it.

Whatever the case, when I worked on them I felt some real intense burning sensation, I am  familiar enough with this sensation to recognize it as adhesions tearing.  It felt like I was stabbing myself with red hot pokers, but afterwards I felt much, much better.  I have no idea why no one else has worked on this area but once I did it I felt amazing, like the pain went away completely.

Like, I'm completely pain free.  It's pretty amazing, and the solution was so freaking simple and easy.  I am now squatting deep, and am pain free.  Just need to keep this up and I will be super, super happy.  Pretty amazing.

Scared to celebrate

Well I have some great news to report.  For the past five days I have not had any hip pain.  Well, I sometimes feel some tightness in my psoas, but I rolled that out and I'm right as rain.  One reason for this could be I saw a highly recommended massage therapist.  He was definitely the best I've seen so far here in the Durham area.  He mostly worked on my back.  The more me and my PT work on my back the more we're finding out that the issues in my back are affecting stuff going on in my hip.  So I decided to direct the massage therapist to my trap/rhomboid/tricep.  He lessened the knots in my back, but nothing was released completely, like what Bobby does.  Sadly, I'm probably not going to be able to find a massage therapist as good as Bobby.  Regardless, the work this guy in Hillsborough did seemed to help quite a bit.

I've been squatting for two weeks now, as well as using the leg press and pistol progressions.  I've decided that before I start squatting anything over 135 pounds I have to be able to pistol squat with either leg.  Before, I could only pistol with my right leg.  I always thought this was odd given my dominant leg is my left leg.  Now, in hindsight, I see that I had no control over my left adductor so I didn't have any stability in my left leg.  So I want to know that I'm able to pistol with either leg.  The pistol progressions are also feeling like great physical therapy.  ...I should also mention that my glutes have been incredibly sore for the past couple of weeks.

So things are going great for the hip.  But to be honest I'm too timid to celebrate yet.  I've experienced some honeymoon phases before, and I'm just afraid that this is the same thing.  I worry that as soon as I start lifting heavy again, I'm going to go back to having hip pain.  I pray that this time it is different, but I'm very, very weary with this.

While all this news with the hip is awesome, now that my mind isn't distracted by any hip pain I'm realizing how uncomfortable I am in my shoulder/trap.  I am using a lacrosse ball like all of the time now, and nothing seems to help release these damnable knots in my back.  I have no idea what is causing them, but they are impossible to release.

I am going to try to convince my PT to start a Graston regimen, maybe twice a week?  I've only had one session and I felt like it was very effective.  I'm going to also ask my PT if we can figure out what the hell is going on in there.  We haven't done any tests for range of motion or anything one my neck and shoulder. So all we know are that there are some incredibly tight muscles back there.

If Mike says no to the Graston idea, then I'm going to see if I can get someone to do this for me with like a butter knife and coconut oil.  It's that bad.  Hopefully I can resolve this issue as well, and in doing so will fix whatever is going on with my hip.