long rant: another ortho appt and some

So I have officially confused the Dr. He has "exhausted the regular suspects." He agrees that I am a zebra where he normally sees horses. I am a mystery. He was kind enough to say that he does not feel this is psychosomatic. So I am not crazy, just not fitting into the regular box. I am a Zebra!

The MUA post op report noted that the Dr was surprised to find minimal resistance. He was so certain it was frozen. Nope, not frozen after all. The MRA and NCV/EMG have returned withing normal limits. There is "obvious neural involvement" he tells me, just nothing permanent. Yet I continue to have pain and functional limitations with Active rom. PROM is perfect but I cry through the whole thing. I don't have good (typical) results with anti inflammatory meds (infections), or pain meds (swelling and hallucinations).

I find some pain relief of the shoulder with my TENS unit but no increased ROM. Oddly enough If I set the tens on my inside elbow I gain some rom in certain movements. In that location it does nothing for the shoulder. That really threw the Dr for a loop. Why does the ulnar nerve issues in my hand go away when the tens is activated around the elbow? I think the ulnar is 'wrong' at the elbow and that is why this happens--but i am not a Dr.

Tendinitis has since encased my elbow, deltoid, bicep and shoulder. I showed him how my shoulder shifts out of place with certain movement. He said it was subluxing. The muscles are weak and not holding things in place properly. He said that if this last bit of pt does not help the pain, and there is nothing funny on the labs (? auto immune disorder) then he will send me to pain management.

I think they are looking for a single thing to explain what is happening and its not that way. I think there are several things going. From what i understand, if the shoulder is not moving properly (subluxation) then tendinitis creeps in. Once that happens the muscles get tight and it causes more impingement. Its a cycle. All of this causes more pain. With chronic tendinitis in my arm and the shoulder shifting out why wouldn't I be in pain?

I just don't know what to think. Almost 9 months now and I still cant hook my bra or pull a can of beans from the shelf without modification and/or tears. SIGH, I guess I will take my zebra self to PT and hope that they can help get me back on track. I still have 3 more weeks of pt to recover from the procedure and try to gain rom that i lost during the procedure. Its slow going. I am really losing hope.

Oh yeah and the OB has found a large "mass" on my ovary. Great...am afraid of my eye Dr appt on Monday.

As bad as I hate to say this sometimes there's just no answer that ryhmes with reason. They can look til the cows come home and still never find whats causing it. Then all you have got is treat the symptoms.

Looks like this may be one of those. As for the mass telling you Not to worry is useless but I will say 80% of masses are benign cysts or shadows of another organ.

Hi, is your cyst growing? Otherwise they usually won't do anything about it, the potential consequences outweigh the benefits, I think that's the reasoning behind it.

Yours is very large though, so I'm not sure what they would or wouldn't do. At any rate, I'm sure you're right about there not being one thing "wrong" - I'm in the same boat and it's hard to deal with because doctors want to know what your "primary" complaint is and focus on that without considering other things that may be a factor. At least in my experience.

Good luck, I hope you get some relief soon!