Use It Or Lose It

That's what the physiotherapist told me about my shoulder over the next few weeks/months. If I don't make diligent use of the painless range of motion that I have right now, it will seize up and rehabilitation of a frozen shoulder will not be fun at all. I was talking to a friend here who had a cortisol injection into her suprapatellar bursa and she said that it wasn't bad at all. Made a huge difference for her pain. If in a couple weeks I'm not seeing significant improvement I might explore getting an ultrasound guided injection for my shoulder...

This morning I was just finishing up my shower and I twisted my shoulder really funny while trying to dry my back. Probably an 9/10 on the pain scale. I thought I felt the tendon/muscle tearing apart just a bit when I did it. You just don't realize how important something is until you lose it. I was just thinking about all the things I can't do without at least some pain or super awkwardly:

- Wash my hair
- Scratch my back
- Brush my teeth (I've realized that it's really awkward to brush my teeth with my non-dominant hand)
- Putting on any pull over shirt/jumper/jacket. If i wore really small t-shirts I would not be able to get my arm in...
- Sleeping on my right side or my stomach. I love sleeping on my stomach so I've had to get used to sleeping either only on my back or on my left side.
- Reaching forward for anything including shaking people's hands, hitting the signal light while driving, grabbing the steering wheel, opening my car door to get out...actually I've noticed my disability the most when I'm driving because there's so much that involves reaching forward and I can't reach!!!
- Pretty much any physical activity that involves my R arm. Can't even do push-ups on my knees...
- Playing the guitar while sitting (because my R arm sits at a weird angle). Thankfully I can still play if I stand up so...I'd be sooooooooooooo depressed right now if I couldn't even do that.

Is this a sign that I'm gettin' old? I remember the days when I would just do things with little to no regard for my body - and I'd be sore afterwards but I'd always bounce back soon after. ARGH!