Folks,
Last summer I reframed a wall in my wifes art studio to accept french doors and a couple of windows. I had to move a hose bib which meant cutting concrete and then I built a small deck out side the studio.
All in all it turned out great.
However, I’m a teacher and there simply wasn’t $$ to hire help so I did the work entirley by myself, solicitiing advice from knowledgable friends when needed. The upshot of all of this is I gave myself a screaming case of bursitis in the shoulder and carpal tunnel in my wrists. Arthritis seems to also have been aggravated in my right hand. I am a choir director – theatre director – guitar teacher at a local high school. My hands and shoulders are important in the work I do. I had cortisone which helped briefly. The bursitis seems however to re occur. Suggesstions for how I might rehab would be appreciated.
BigMike
Replies
You need to see a medically certified physical therapist (not a chiro, and not just the guy at the local gym) to learn the proper exercises for your situation. I saw one for a bad knee about a year and a half ago, and the knee symptoms cleared up after only 48 hours. YMMV, of course, but these folks know what they're doing.
What Dan said. Physical therapy and exercises have done wonders for me.
This is important enough to your life that you need to see a doctor who is familiar with such things. These types of injuries are generally cumulative, so you were probably on the way from your occupational activities, and the sudden burst of additional work was enough to push you over the edge. Certainly rest will help. Good thing summer is coming up. If you were planning on giving lessons or something like that in the summer it may be better if you skip it this year. Even normal activities, like pushing a lawnmower, can be bad in your case.
Seek good medical advice and be careful to not keep aggravating the injuries.
Take it easy the rest of the school year, too.
Buy and install a hot tub. Set it at about 103 degrees. Soak every evening for about 20 minutes, all the way up to your neck.
It may not actually help with the pain during the day, but it sure feels good each night.
Unless you're the lead dog, the view just never changes.
Add Bourbon.
Who Dares Wins.
Although you are keying these injuries and pain to the heavier construction work, they are common repetitive motion problems for other occupations such as yours. painters and truck drivers who use arms and hands in similar motioons without great loads suffer then same.
it is probably an accumulation of the years of activity and old age itself setting in and you only became more aware of it all with the heavier work oad on that project. My various ailments are always worse when I do heavier work.
regular stretching, range of motion and strength excercises you can learn from PT, Yoga, or Pilates are what you want, along with good diet, lots of water, and occasional NSAIDs
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Great advice from all hear. One other suggestion is to use your left hand more. We have a couple of carpenters with wrist and elbow pain who switched hands for nailing. After six months their pain was gone and they were very competent using their left hands.
A lot of good advice, make sure you see the physical therapist. Some states will allow you to see a therapist with a direct physicians orders. So you may need to see your physician and have him order the physical therapy for you. And insurance may not pay if there is no doctors order. Only problem here is insurance and physical therapy. If you have a HMO they will limit your PT so you may have to pick up some extra sessions on your own. Getting the inflammation down is critical before you get going on an exercise program. Good luck with all of it.
Sorry about the injuries. All advice above is good stuff. So, did you really save any money? DanT
BigMike:
You have my sympathy. I'm a fifty eight year old banjo picking lawyer who's also a construction junkie. The result is chronic knee, shoulder, elbow, and wrist problems. I second what's been said about PT -- particularly that it be the real thing, not the guy at the gym, not the chiropractor (though the best of those are really just physical therapists). You should really go see an orthopedist first. That person will do virtually nothing for you, but will probably order the appropriate MRI's to rule out really bad things (you want to rule out really bad things), will prescribe anti-inflammatories (I'm presently very happy with BEXTRA; you want to be very, very careful with Non-steriodal anti-inflammatories, however, since there as many annual deaths from intestinal bleeding caused by their use as there are on construction sites) and will prescribe a real physical therapist, who will actually do things that help, and will also advise you on proper support items to use (I've found the wrist supports particularly useful). Don't despair. These things can actually get better, and you can return to pain free status. I've found it, paradoxically, important to keep working to capacity, even in the face of pain, and not babying the injuries too much. Good luck.
My dad wore a copper bracelet for bursitus in his wrist. Sounds like voodoo therapy to me but he claimed it helped.