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Well... sort of. Pain does things to me. It's like working out, all by itself. It causes me to tighten and improves posture... or something. I love to dread it and dread to love it. But, as this eases a bit, I can now tell what it was. Either a muscle or a nerve got entangled on, and around, my left shoulder blade, inside my torso. It twisted well and good. That muscle, nerve, or both, then followed my ribcage around to the polar opposite front of my chest. However... somehow that pain short-circuited right through my chest, on that axis. Basically causing some concern that it was the heart. Odd, and a bit... unnerving, no pun intended... as I generally don't have heart pains, even when I stress physically or elsewise. The pain has lessened, and backed to the source (which is how I know). Now it just feels like someone cut around the inside of the shoulder blade somehow. Still has some good burn to it, but not enough to prevent me from... creating new pains! *grin* Shut up.
Tonight I am going to go through my pack. I want it to be ready, so if I get everything going and see an opportunity, I can get out and go for a hike. This time I would like to make it up to the yurt, on the trail I was following before. I want to make sure I have what I need to take a nap, and if it gets too late to simply camp over. A bite to eat for several meals, enough water, something to sleep in and something to put over my sleeping area, and the willingness to do it. I don't think I will be staying overnight, I just want to have that capacity at the ready. It will happen, before long. Perhaps a longer hike after that. The goal is to have more food and water than I will need, just in case. Yeah, it's... coming.
Sleep has been good, but a bit off due to the pain. Which is fine. That stuff fixes itself. I may try to get to a few things here in the cave today. The laundry which is just waiting, the few dishes that are being soaked, and a bit of tidying up. I have a lot of boxes to break down and those could go in as well. Hmm, I should save a few of the better ones. I think I used all the old ones I had saved. A half dozen stronger boxes, stacked and ready, don't take much space, and can be indispensable in a pinch. In the next few days, I want to begin looking over my bathroom. I may just rip the old sink counter out, remove the old toilet, bring the (new) hot water heater out, begin removing the various levels of flooring down to the last layer of 'whatever (probably plywood, though could be *ugh* particle board), and begin... pondering. With the workshop being set up in the garage, I now have a place to plot my takeover of the universe! Urhm, I mean, plot the revitalization of the cave... *cough* Sorry... get... carried away. *smile*
Later.
That sounds like a twisted/rolled rib. Most often it happens when you kick a vertebrae out of line doing something like heavy, unbalanced lifting, a hard twisting jerk on one side, repetitive one-sided motion. Then the back muscles kick in and try to straighten that vertebrae out, but if it is stuck, they just keep pulling to no effect and get sore and rope-like, then intercostal muscles kick in and twist your rib that attaches at that vertebrae. Suddenly there is sore pressure on your sternum. The worst ones are under your shoulder blade because you can't easily get to it by rolling over something on your back, no one can reach it directly to help pop it back in place. It can sometimes take a while for the muscles to relax and let everything go back into place.
ReplyDeleteYou know, that might be exactly it. It keeps acting like it's going to get better, then... right back into Painsville, via offramp 666. :p The nature of the pain is different, over time. Now it feels like they cleaned the inside of that left blade of muscle, from the outside, with a knife. And, if I had to say, I would guess that it is just a mite lessor, on the scale. Down to an eight when it flares. Yum!
ReplyDeleteThankfully, I have learned to relax muscles and such, even when they are on fire and I have every right to be panicking about it. It's more just experience with excruciating dainties than any native wisdom. I remember having a mostly on, sometimes off, major charley horse for over a week. I just... hate the phoniness of doctors and the idea of them. So if it's not likely to lead to death (i.e. there is nothing so obvious to fix that even they can't fuck it up), I don't go to them. Besides, I can usually figure it out before those numbnut cold-fingered dorks can, and without taking a bunch of, what often ends up having been useless, pills.
Oh, I can get a might grumpy though. At least about some things, like bore's teets promising milk. Ha!
A good PT or even a massage therapist might help if it is a rolled rib. Hate to say chiropractor, but some are actually skilled. If it is a stuck, misaligned vertebrae causing it, it needs to become unstuck to fix it.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you can bend backward over a couch arm, or chair that has a back that comes up to your mid-shoulder blades. A mild pop I is a good thing.
There is actually a foam roll made specifically to help this and other back muscle things where you lie on it on the floor and roll it up and down perpendicular to your spine. You go no lower than the end of your ribs, and no higher that the top if your shoulders. It is made of dense polyethylene type foam like they pack some electronics in (not Styrofoam), usually about 4 feet long, and 6-8 inches in diameter.
Arguably, you might want to make sure it isn't heart related, considering...but if it is really a rib, PT is likely the answer.
If it lasts a month, I'll find a masseuse who knows how to dig in deep and untie the knot. It's not making it so that I can't carry a load or lift and move stuff. It isn't even a flexibility issue at this time. And... pain... isn't all bad. For my type. It's a motivator.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have masseuses in the... out there, and our docs were pretty much, well... We learned to treat those types of things on our own, as we could, or just eat it. Better than Wheaties, in my opinion. :)