More Trials And Travails

For the past couple of months, in addition to my ongoing back woes, my left biceps has been giving me varying amounts of difficulty. Lifting my arm over my head, for example, has become and exercise in futility. The pain comes and goes (never disappearing completely), but in general it hurts and has limited mobility.

I finally broke down and went to the doctor. Having to use my right arm to lift the left, barely being able to pick up Lani, not being able to lean on my left elbow--these things annoy and distract. (That's not to mention the constant pain.)

The doctors kept trying to get me to say that my shoulder hurt, but it doesn't. I don't think I've lost any motion in the shoulder as such; the only difficulty I have is in pretty much anything to do with the left biceps. They ruled out muscle degeneration and a broken arm (wouldn't I know if I had a broken arm? Guess not). So they sent me off to physical therapy.

Turns out, according to the physical therapist, that even though my shoulder doesn't hurt, he's pretty sure that it's a shoulder problem. It certainly hurt when he pressed on my left shoulder, when contrasted with the utter lack of pain compared with the right. I guess I just didn't notice it, because on its own, the left shoulder really doesn't feel painful. Anyway, his theory is that my shoulder is a little swollen because I overstressed it somehow (no idea how; I haven't lifted weights in months) and that the swelling is constricting nerves leading to my biceps.

It was actually pretty cool. The PT was a nice guy, and he was very nice to Lani, who had to come along with me. He worked my arm through a bunch of motions to figure out exactly what was going on, showed me models and pictures, and was just in general a friendly, knowledgeable person.