Shoulder Pain

I turned 40 in 2002 and as I approached that age, I was involved with a lot of x-games sports.  I remember rock climbing and attempting a "dyno".  (this is when you grab onto the ledges, pump up and down building up momentum and launch up to grab a hand hold somewhere above you .....Tom Cruise in MI 1) and missed.  It resulted in a year of not being able to bench press, lift overhead, and catching of my shoulder with any movement.  Some of my old patients may remember when I was working with a huge ice pack on my shoulder for 3 weeks.  I had seen my physical therapist who specialized in throwers, I took some of the best prescription medicines available, even got ready for arthroscopic surgery after the 6th month of not being able to exercise.

At that point, I had stumbled on alternative healing.  While an employee of CDH, one of the stipulations in my contract was to have my CMEpaid for, I chose a seminar in California with some guy that was teaching acupuncture to pain medicine doctors.  I planned on signing my name on the roster, blowing off the lecture and hanging out at the beach.  The keynote was made by Dr Joesph Helms and I remember sitting in the front row in a room of 800 doctors and with my long hair (midlife crisis) challenging him with questions on acupuncture in sports medicine, acupuncture in pediatrics, acupuncture for medical diseases.  But this guy nailed all my questions with very intelligent answers!  Then when he asked for a volunteer, I gave him my body (very skeptical and anxious to get to the beach).  Remember my shoulder was still painful and limited with range of motion from the rock climbing injury earlier in the year.  He place 3 needles into my shoulder and within 10 minutes, I had pain free, range of motion just like my pre-injury state!   I was sold on this weird 2500 year old concept of healing.  Thus began my journey into alternative and complementary medicine.
Note that I still had to do my rotator cuff exercises, my scapular stability exercises, take glucosamine sulfate, and have acupuncture 2-3 times a week for a few months.....but I avoided surgery and now have regained full range, better strength than before and can do hand stands in yoga at 51 years of age.  (the acupuncture isnt just a passive treatment, it helps the body heal so anyone with injury or disease still has to put in the sweat equity and maintain the building blocks to health and healing (see my Anti-inflammatory Lifestyle video here).