Ryan Bickerstaff

Last night my shoulder was getting progressively worse even with just minor movements, so I set my alarm for 8am this morning to call the Sports Medicine department at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation when they first opened.  This is a really good place to go and the doctors are all experts, but my past experience trying to get in to see Dr. Saxena about my foot in a timely manner seemed to indicate they are booked solid weeks in advance.  In any case, whether I plead my case really well (the fact that even rolling out of bed was painful) or they had some open spaces, they said I could get in to see any of the three shoulder experts they have.  I ended up seeing Dr. Colin Eakin at 9:15am, and I was really happy because when I go home to Oklahoma there won’t be any specialists available.

Normally, I really like to talk to the doctor and get an understanding of what caused the problem, how to prevent it in the future, and how to best deal with it right now.  Dr. Eakin must have been in high speed mode today, though, because literally within 60 seconds of him walking into the exam room, he asked how it felt, did some range of motion tests, and then goes, “You injured your AC joint, and I’m going to give you a cortisone injection.”  I was like, whoa, whoa, normally cortisone injections are a last resort, and he said, “you could have surgery instead.” haha And when I asked if it would get better on its own, he said “maybe, but you need the injection if you want the pain to go away.”  So, since I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks and the pain was pretty bad, I went ahead and got the injection.

In addition to the cortisone, he injected some lidocaine, which acts as an anesthetic.  Immediately afterwards he did the same range of motion tests, and I had almost no pain.  I was thinking wow, that was fast!  But apparently lidocaine wears off fairly quickly, so by the time I got to work it was hurting again.  The doctor said the cortisone will kick in by around Thursday, so I’ll have to endure some discomfort in the meantime.

It was hard to get much out of him as to what could have caused the problem, but he said it was likely a weight lifting injury.  I didn’t think I was using too much weight, but I can think of a couple of exercises that may have aggravated it.  Add sleeping on my shoulder funny one night and perhaps too much paddle use in the pool, I think it could have just been a combination of things.  In any case, the doctor said no paddles or weights above 10 pounds (I probably won’t do any) for two weeks.  After a couple of days, he said regular swimming should be fine.   All I know is that there is no way I can possibly swim with how it feels right now…it would be unbearable.

This of course throws a wrinkle into my training plans.  Swimming makes up around 40% of my total hours of exercise per week.  I’m going to have a lot more energy in the short term.  I tend to want to make up for it a bit by doing extra in something else.  However, I’m pretty much maxed out with lower and core body strength training as well as running (due to wanting to go easy on my foot).  I may be able to squeeze in a bit more biking, but again, I don’t want those muscles to become overly fatigued.  I might just have to live with a little extra rest for the time being, which isn’t always a bad thing.

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