Not just bursitis…

commoner.”

Almost a year ago, I hurt my shoulder. Well, I don’t actually recall doing anything specific that would have hurt it, but it was hurting nonetheless. I tried self-medicating with Aleve and a heating pad and such, but it went from “well, that’s annoying” to “it hurts to move” over the course of several days.

I also, as one does these days, consulted the internet, which of course, said I could have anything from a torn rotator cuff to a strained tendon to arthritis. Eventually, it got too painful to even operate my computer mouse (which is like 70% of my job… oh and “mouse shoulder” is another suggestion the world wide web came up with, like “tennis elbow” but for non-athletes, I guess). So I finally relented and went to the doctor, which I hate doing because they always find something wrong with you.

Anyway, after a brief consultation and some poking and prodding, the nurse practitioner (I guess “mouse shoulder” doesn’t warrant an M.D.’s input when there’s a room full of genuinely sick people) came up with a diagnosis of “bursitis” in my shoulder.

“Sounds like an old person’s disease,” my daughter later told me, and I, of course, told her to “shut up.” But it’s apparently the inflammation of the bursae, a fluid filled pad that cushions the joints and the bursae may become inflamed from frequent repetitive motions (like “mouse shoulder,” I suppose).

Anyway, I got a round of steroids and a bottle of antiinflammatory pills and was on my way. It had been a cou-

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ple of months and it wasn’t really starting to feel better, so “old person’s disease” or not, I was definitely feeling pretty old.

So, I went back to the doctor and this time I guess I complained enough that they sent me for an x-ray.

At the x-ray place, they asked me some questions and took some x-rays of my arm and shoulder.

When that didn’t show anything unusual, I was asked some more questions, and the answers I gave led the doctor to decide they might need to take a look at my neck, which I thought was odd, because my neck had not been bothering me But I guess there’s a reason some people are doctors and some are newspaper guys, because sure enough, the x-rax showed I had a bone sput between two of my vertebrae (6 and 7 in case you were wondering).

With thay mystery solved, they decided it was time to go for an MRI. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had an MRI, but while it’s not painful, it is an ordeal of sorts. You sit in the metal tube and have to lie perfectly still for half an hour while the machine takes a scan of your body.

It’s really claustrophobic and loud.

So, the MRI showed that in additionl to the bone spur, there was also a bulging disc between those same two vertebrae and that whole situation was the cause of my troubles.

In the short term, I was given a cervical traction device help release some of the stress on my neck. If you’re unfamiliar with a cervical traction device, it’s a jockstrap-looking thing that goes around your head and there’s a weight on the end of it that pulls your neck up. It does help a little but it also looks pretty silly as you’re sitting there in it.

Long term, I went to see a neurologist who gave me a series of “nerve blocks” which honestly were just steroids shot directly into my neck. Those made it a little better but only for a few days.

It was starting to look like neck surgery was on the horizon, but before we landed on that, my doctor decided to put me on a pill that specifically targets nerve pain, as well as an anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxer with plans to meet up at the end of May to decide if it was time to go ahead and set up that neck surgery.

Well, lo and behold, I actually feel much, much better. I can’t tell you if it’s actually healing or if the new drugs just really, really work. I am pretty much fully functional and I’m able to do just about all of the things I want and need to do without pain or numbness and I might have dodged getting the neck surgery after all.

I hope it doesn’t affect my badminton game.