I’ve taken no painkillers this morning. No Lortab, no Soma, no caffeine, no Ibuprofen — nothing, not since I popped my last Lortab around midnight.

It hurts a lot.

“It” in this case is more of a hive-minded “them” — my shoulder, my neck, my head, my arm, and my back. It hurt enough that I got drowsy and went back to sleep, where I remained for almost two hours. Now that I’m awake, I can feel “tracks” radiating out from the tip of my shoulder, indicating exactly where the injury originated, and where the outward rippling displaced, tweaked, sprained, strained, jarred, bruised, and/or otherwise “adjusted” the state of nearby bits.

I know this is largely illusion. There are no tracks. This is not the thumbprint of a giant, and the CSI team is not going to be able to use this information to reconstruct the grille of the truck that hit me. This is just pain receptors announcing that signals are coming in five by five.

The doctor is going to get an accurate answer to the “how do you feel?” question, which is what I want to provide, and that’s why I’ve been off meds for almost 12 hours now.

The instructions he provides following diagnosis will almost certainly include “start taking your painkillers again, you idiot,” and I will enthusiastically comply.

–Howard

For some reason the “create a poll” interface keeps disappearing on me. It’s in the little grey box of links I get when I update my journal from the Livejournal website, but that grey box vanishes as the page loads.

The poll was going to be “what will the doctor say today?”

This article has some useful information about separated shoulders, and made for good reading just before I went to bed last night. It seems there are six types of separated shoulders, numbered 1 through 6, and that numbers 4 through 6 almost always require surgery. Type 3 used to get operated on, but is now treated more conservatively. Type 1 and type 2 are treated with a sling, painkillers, and lots of rest.

I suspect I’ll be found possessed of a Type 1 Separation. The X-ray indicated separation, but the tenderness in my shoulder seemed to be in the wrong place for that (on the back instead of the front), which would be consistent with Type 1 if the doctor I saw doesn’t consider Type 1 a separation at all, but a sprain (and that’s kind of supported by the wording on the page I linked). Type 1 means that I’ll be healing up quickly, and with that particular verdict I’ll almost certainly begin drawing again today.

Type 2 means I’ll start drawing again today, but I’ll feel guilty about it.

–Howard

In my experience, doctors never prescribe anything to stimulate or accelerate actual healing. They only prescribe stuff for pain, and to kill the boojums that cause it, but all they’re really doing is removing the obstacles that stand between your natural healing mechanisms and your injury.

Is that accurate? Are there exceptions? Help me out here…

Here’s the experience I would have LIKED to have with the doctor:

“Well, Howard, it looks like you’ve separated your shoulder. I’m going to give you enough painkillers that you’ll sit down and do nothing for four days, but you HAVE TO TAKE THEM. That will prevent you from injuring yourself further, and you’ll be too stoned to be bored. I’m also going to give you a nutritional supplement that will ensure that your body has the necessary materials to quickly rebuild that shoulder of yours.”

Then the doctor would hand me some pieces of paper, I’d go to the pharmacy, and I’d come away with a rejuvenative, regenerative cocktail, and I’d understand why I needed each of the pieces.

I know, I know, there are lots of supplements out there. Off the shelf I could probably acquire steroids, ligament strengtheners, and protein isolates which would dramatically accelerate the process by which my useless shoulder is made useful. I’m also very nearly smart enough to figure out what to buy without the help of a doctor. Sure, some of it is snake-oil, and even the stuff that appears to work for everybody has very limited “scientific” support in the form of clinical trials, but hey… I could figure out what’s what on my own.

My question is why won’t doctors do that for me? Isn’t there money to be made there? Wouldn’t it make sense for an association of (for instance) doctors who specialize in physical therapy to get together with (for instance) a company that makes protein powders, and underwrite a formal study on using supplements to treat (for instance) separated shoulders?

No, the pharmaceutical companies don’t stand to make quetzlcoatillions of dollars selling non-patentable protein powders, but certainly your local pharmacy could make a buck or two. SOMEBODY out there (besides us miserable convalescents) stands to benefit from the formalization of prescription-strength “healing aids.”

I’m sure some of you will tell us how the modern medical establishment is little more than a conspiracy to keep natural healers on the lunatic fringe and make the megapharms and their stockholders fithily richer. I want answers that are a little more firmly grounded.

–Howard
ps: I mixed up some glutamine and creatine this evening, and my shoulder started to burn about an hour later. It felt like the burn I get after a workout, not like an injury. It was “new” pain, and it fascinates me. And this evidence of the existence of a niche for prescribed supplements is not especially firmly grounded.

My shoulder hurt a lot this morning when I woke up. I think I mentioned that in a previous entry.

So… I took a Lortab and a Soma at 8:30am, and then walked to Church ahead of the rest of the family. Understand, this is in Orem, Utah, where pretty much any Latter-Day Saint lives within a short walk of their congregation’s meetinghouse. I’m no exception. I have to cross two residential streets, and I walk past 9 front yards (counting only those on my right side as I walk).

So… I walked to church, sat down in a promising looking pew, and waited for the medication to kick in.

When Sandra arrived 10 minutes later I was about to fall over sideways. We agreed that it might be best if I sat in the foyer on a comfy chair (typically used by nursing mothers and delinquent teenagers), stuck around long enough to take the acrament (Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or Communion depending on your particular vernacular), and then walked home. Well, the Sacrament was passed to me, and I spent a few precious wetware cycles contemplating my relationship with God. Then I contemplated walking home, and realized that walking ANYWHERE in my current stuporous state was likely a bad idea, so I stayed put.

I fell asleep.

I woke up when the closing hymn was sung. I sat dazedly in place wondering if Sandra would come and get me, and then realized that she probably thought I was at home. I decided to venture forth from the increasingly womb-like comfort of that chair (note the subject line — “stoned in church”) and walked very slowly until I located Sandra. We talked about it, and determined that the easiest thing to do would rhyme nicely with “stay at Church.”

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