Life's a pain

 Chronic pain is a strange thing. If I ever wondered why people went quiet during periods of sustained illness, well, I don't now. It's not a matter of wanting to be alone; it's just a matter of pain being so much to the forefront of your mind that you can't really be bothered with much else. 

As many of you know, because I have no compunction sharing stuff like this (bugger this stiff upper lip, crap), I've been suffering shoulder pain for just over three months now. So I reckon that qualifies as "chronic". It's nothing compared with the pain that many people suffer. Some (such as Prince) effectively die as a result of chronic pain. However, it's irritating because diagnosis is proving elusive, and that means prognosis is difficult. Also the pain is of varying types (skeletal, muscular; throbbing, dull ache) and is occasionally acute, because my shoulder also suffers restricted movement, and if I make the mistake of going beyond that range, I'm in agony for a few minutes.

But that's by the by. I'm not dead and I don't think I am dying.  What I have changed is my prorities. Basically I just pray for a reasonable night's sleep. Sometimes I wake up once (about 3am), and I need to roll around on the foam roller for about 15 minutes. For the rest of the time the sleeps is reasonable. That qualifies as a great night. The bad nights are disturbed sleep for about 90 minutes, have to get up, an hour of foam rollers etc etc, back to bed, awake again 90 minutes later. Eventually I get up in the morning feeling worse than when I went to bed the night before.

It doesn't make the nights much to look forward to. But (and I guess this is the point) it all goes to prove what we all secretly know anyway -- that happiness is relative. Those decent night's sleep when I wake up feeling refreshed and (for a while) almost pain-free, leave me almost ecstatic with joy. I'm the happiest man alive, I feel. And the bad times? Well, occasional feelings of despair, but they are only brief. I just tell myself that tomorrow might be better and that I am strong enough to get through this. It's a battle I am playing with pain, with "playing" being the operative word. I see no reason to let the bloody thing defeat me, even if it might make me less than 100%.

I've been referred to the muscular-skeletal department at Lewisham Hospital, and am awaiting an appointment. All the treatment that I have had thus far seems to have had random effects -- sometimes temporary relief (a few hours). I suspect any of the other changes have been independent of the osteopath and physiotherapist.

My hunch is that it's a combination of things in the GH and the AC shoulder joints -- arthritis, capsulitis, a torn rotator-cuff, whatever -- which is serving to make a diagnosis difficult because it isn't a single problem. Arthritis in the AC makes sense because of the weight training. Capsulitis in the GH is not that uncommon for people my age. This leads to inflammation, grinding, all the different kinds of pain, all of which can "come and go". I'm kind of hoping that an x-ray and a scan will at least help them define what the problem is. It's not so much a paucity of possible treatments as a plethora of them, with somethings working for some people and some things making it worse. Without an accurate diagnosis it really is punting in the dark.

Oh well, tonight is another night and tomorrow is another day.