i’ve got a weird injury, and it’s been going on for a month. it’s so strange i’m not going to doctors yet, because i’ve got a strong feeling i’ll waste a lot of time and money and not know anything more than i know now after all the time and effort. so i thought i’d describe it to all you smart people.
i’m getting ready to run one day, and i’m stretching. not formally, sort of like a stretch you do when you yawn. when all of a sudden i feel something faint go on in alongside my spine, fairly high up, like C-6 or C-7. i think i pulled a rib out. monty says he hears a pop (we’re getting ready to run together, he’s standing 6 feet away). i don’t hear a pop, so if there was a pop it wasn’t especially loud.
i’ve got a bit of pain, but not so much i can’t run, and we go on the run. 5 minutes into the run the pain has abated enough so that i have quite a fine run, i go fast, feel comfortable, no problem. but then the next day comes…
…getting up in the morning, i’m screwed. from high neck to mid back i’m really done in. furthermore, the pain is perhaps even worse through my shoulder and even down my arm. intermittently i’ve got pain all the way down to my hand. i’ve lost about half the strength in my left arm, meanwhile. i can’t drive without pain, somewhat in the back where this “happened” but even more so in the shoulder.
a month goes by, and things slowly resolve themselves during this time, but mostly it’s the pain that’s resolved. i still have pain, but not as badly. certain arm and shoulder movements are fine, with full strength, others are not fine, and strength is only (let us say) half of what it was.
there is no loss of sensation, at least tactile sensation. there is no spot that is numb.
last night i got back in the pool for the first time since this happened. okay, i’m swimming like a dog, because i’ve been out of the pool for 7 weeks. but my left arm, which is my dominant arm (i’m left handed), the arm in which this has happened, is in really bad shape in the pool. from the catch to the point where my hand is at chest level i’ve got what feels like nothing, no strength. it’s a job just to get my arm to do the motion properly. then i pick up a bit of strength once my hand is at chest level.
i swam sort of hard, and i paid for it afterward. i feel better today, midday, 18 hours after swimming, but the pain returned last night immediately after the swim and was evident through the night. but as of now, less than a day later, it’s mostly back to the point it was at pre-yesterday’s-swim.
this is the same arm that suffered a very bad broken collarbone exactly two years ago.
that’s about it. i thought this was a displaced rib when it first happened, and this happens to me several times a year. lots of pain, but two days later i’m fine. i roll around on a tennis ball while on the floor on my back, it clicks back in.
i’ve been to no doctors, no xrays, no MRIs, no cat scans, no bone scans, no barium scans, no spinal injections, nothing therapeutic, nothing diagnostic – except – i’ve been to the chiro twice. lots of nice clicks, but no real help. if this just a rib out, it’s the mother of all ribs out.
so, a pinched nerve? permanent nerve damage? a blood clot in an artery that goes from my back to my shoulder? AIDS? ebola? hantaviris? i’m at a loss.