Follow up Visit

I went to my orthopedic surgeon on Thursday to get an evaluation on my knee. I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and was going to have him check out my shoulder at the same time. My shoulder has been bugging me for about 4 years. The last time I got it checked, my doctor said that I had premature onset of rheumatoid arthritisin the rotator cuff. This sounds a lot worse then it really is (I hope). Well anyways, he gave me a few options (surgery, cortisone shot) I choose physical therapy instead. Sure physical therapy takes longer and may not work, but I didn’t want to go under knife and wasn’t too crazy about taking the shot which doesn’t do anything except numb the pain.

So the doctor took a look at my knee and asked how I did it. I told him, and also let him know that it had gotten a whole lot better since the fall. He said that he wanted to take a few more x-rays of the knee. I then told him about how my shoulder had gotten worse again. He checked the shoulder and said that he was going to take another battery of x-rays on it as well. (At this rate, I thought I might be glowing when I left the place.)

I got four more x-rays on my knee and six more on my shoulder.

After a few minutes of waiting in the examination room, the doctor walked in. He said good news, bad news to me. The good news (he went on to say) was that my knee was structurally sound and that what I was doing was good enough for now. He said that I should not do any running, but did suggest that I increase my range of motion by biking.

The bad news was that my arthritic shoulder now had bone spurs growing on it. I said what does this mean and he went on to say that in some cases of arthritis, bone spurs may form as a result of this. He said that if my shoulder was causing me to sleep depravation. I fibbed by telling him that it did not. Honestly, I cannot sleep in my favorite position and I have not been sleeping well for months.

He took a closer look at my shoulder (prodding a joint manipulation), and checked the level of strength I had in my shoulder. He said that he wanted to do another MRI on my shoulder to get a better idea of where the bone spur was and also to see what else was going on in my shoulder. Therefore, it’s off the to the MRI lab next week to see if there is any other damage in my shoulder.