It’s been a bit of a year… health issues here and there, drifting into “Can’t Be Bothered” the last part of the year..
I’ve had various visits to doctors, with no particularly helpful outcomes. Some things resolve, some don’t. For the last few months I’ve been progressively shutting down – pain, stiffness, lack of interest. Finally, I have an answer, and a light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂
Heard of “Frozen”? I have frozen shoulders! How cool am I?
Seriously, though, it’s been a bit difficult… if you want to read about what it is, here’s a link.
Basically, there’s three stages –
Freezing – increasing stiffness, lots of pain.
Frozen – Stiffness, but pain receding.
Thawing – Mobility increasing, pain returning.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule, but resolution of all three stages appears to take 1-3 years. I’m in the first stage, possibly sliding into second. The pain is… hard to describe.. and can be caused by a random movement, or just lightly bumping against something… sometimes even just sitting still for a period of time can trigger it. I can’t stretch my arms out to the side very far, and behind not at all. This makes things such as dressing oneself, washing/brushing hair, and basic sleeping (can’t stay in one position for too long) difficult to impossible.
I’d love to just Let It Go! 😉
What’s in the future?
I’ll probably be getting corticosteroid injections into the shoulder joints sometime next week, which should hopefully reduce or eliminate the need for constant pain medication. I also seem to have thyroid issues (one of the possible underlying factors for frozen shoulders), so I’ve started taking vitamins/minerals/herbal preparation drops to revive and support my thyroid/adrenal/hypothalamus/pancreas. I probably won’t be running marathons by next week, but things are looking up! 🙂
So, if you see me, and I look like I’ve dressed in a dark room, using a random tree branch to brush my hair, it’s not that I’m not trying – I just can’t do it as well as normal…
Here’s to becoming Un-Frozen!
