The current description of why my right shoulder has been hurting like hell since I injured myself at work and went through physical therapy for it 4 years ago and injured it again in a car accident almost 2 years ago, is that I have bursitis. As opposed to frozen shoulder - which is how it started - the therapy for this condition is very different.

Bursitis is usually brought on by some type of trauma. Injuring both sides again in the car accident didn’t help me heal. Or move forward.

With a swollen bursa; applying heat to it - although feeling wonderful when I have done it, has aggravated the condition and made the pain worse. We are now applying cold paks twice a day, and doing a limited number of exercises.

My neck and shoulder area stiffened up quite a bit over time dealing with this thing, but they’ve been helping me in therapy to loosen that up. I can move my head again.

AND…they’ve been taping the shoulder, which has given me a tremendous amount of relief from the pain, which had been ratcheted up to an unbearable constant level.

I can’t believe I can actually look forward to having a productive life back again.

It’s still ongoing, with about two more weeks left of PT.

The only part about stabilizing the shoulder by taping it, is…it itches like crazy!

Other than that, it feels really great.

And the audible clicking and cracking when I move the arm is lessening.

Physical therapy is going splendidly, and I’m in a lot less pain now. The thing is; I seem to need a lot of sleep for some reason…but things are coming into clear focus, and I’m able to think a lot more clearly during my waking hours.

Part of the magic is this tape that the physical therapist somehow managed to put together; which took the pressure off the throbbing joint. The tape is now off, but I guess in addition to applying cold packs twice a day and doing some strengthening exercises, the tape will be applied again.

I’m a big proponent of physical therapy; but you have to get someone who knows what they’re doing.

Luckily, he has pictures of the shoulder joint, and the associated muscles and tendons, and even the bursa itself…so he’s been explaining what he’s been doing.

What I’ve been surprised about is how the pain and muscle strain has gone into my neck and even into the middle of the back.

This is going to be much more of an intense recuperation project than I had originally thought; I thought it was only the shoulder.

They’re not ‘winning’…I’m off to the doctor.

And if I get a cortizone shot, I’ll be off the computer for a few days.

Update: I got the cortizone shot - and I can’t believe how much pain has gone away!!! I hope this keeps up! 6 more weeks of physical therapy..and I may have kicked this thing!

We might actually be at the end of 4 years in painful hell!

I just saw a forensics program by Michael Baden, the forensics expert. The show was about autopsy evidence that unequivocally concluded that the death was due to his first responder action on 9/11 and breathing in the particles from the aftermath of the buildings falling down.

There are-right now- 12,000 first responders who are now suffering with 9/11 lung-related injuries. Over 800 police officers and firefighters have taken disability due to their first responder action on 9/11. Part of this was they rushed in to help and weren’t properly protected or trained for a situation like that.

Soon there will be many more than 3,000 victims of 9/11.

On top of all that are the incredible heroic rescue dogs that died as a result.

The show is mentioned here.

From Pat Dollard.

I had previously put up a post about waterboarding cows, tongue-in-cheek.

The video shows it’s a serious and frightening thing.

Schools scramble to find questionable meat-LA Times:

The California Department of Education on Thursday urged all schools in the state to temporarily strike from the menu any item containing ground beef, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture investigated claims that Hallmark Meat Packing butchered so-called downer cattle that are too weak to walk.

A video released Wednesday by the Humane Society of the United States showed workers at Hallmark dragging downed animals by their legs or using forklifts and water hoses to force weak cattle to their feet, prompting the federal investigation.

The USDA banned “non-ambulatory” cattle from the human food supply last year because inability to walk may be a sign of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. Studies in Europe found that cattle that were unable to rise or walk were more likely than other cattle to carry the disease, which can be transferred to humans through consumption.

Just last year ‘non-ambulatory’ cattle were banned from the human food supply? What about the animal food supply? How long has this been going on before the ban?

My family has been talking about this silent epidemic for some time. I wonder if it will slip back under the covers.

Articles:

First apparent U.S. case of mad cow disease discovered-CNN, 2003

Two Companies In Battle About Fair Competition

Hormel sues Campbell Soup on grounds of unfair competition and false advertising — because Campbell describes one Chunky Soup product as a stew.

Hormel Foods is stewing over a new line of chunky soup products recently launched by Campbell Soup Co.

The new “Chunky Fully Loaded” soups promise “extreme amounts of meat,” taking soup “to the next level.” One flavor in the line is called “Chunky Fully Loaded Beef Stew.”

But officials at Hormel said you can’t call it stew unless it really is under federal rules, and they are suing Campbell claiming unfair competition and false advertising.

Hormel makes Dinty Moore stews. A company spokeswoman said the Campbell Soup product doesn’t meet the standard for stew.

The Campbell’s products are labeled as a soup, but Hormel said the term is placed low on the label so that it’s difficult to see.

Campbell hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

What a bunch of Corporate whining crybaby sissies!!!

WAHHH - your soup is bigger than mine!

Originally my attention was drawn to the subject at Arthur’s Hall of Viking Manliness in a post called “Soy is evil plant semen”. You might laugh, but when you get further into the narrative, he is actually explaining some of the reasons why you shouldn’t ingest it, or allow any of the men in your life to ingest it, or give it to children; particularly babies.

And now, I’m discovering more and more articles that seem to indicate that the ‘health benefits’ completely outweigh the dangers of soy–soy lowers testosterone levels, for example. Or the fact that it weakens your thyroid, and the fact that women’s bodies can’t take that much estrogen flooding their systems. That’s a surprise; my doctor suggested that I use soy milk as a diet supplement to discourage the symptoms of menopause like hot flashes, etc. What is frightening is that babies who can’t tolerate cow’s milk are oftentimes put on soy formula, and it is not a good thing for babies, either.

The feminazi attitude in our society today is being helped along with the evils of soy, and it’s time we all pay attention before it’s too late….

Soy is making kids ‘gay’

The trouble with soy – part 2
The trouble with soy – part 3
The trouble with soy – part 4
The trouble with soy – part 5

A Look at the Dangers of Soy to the Health of Your Thyroid

Ask Natural Life: Are Soy Foods Safe?

Recent research at Belfast’s Royal Maternity Hospital indicates that isoflavones decrease the ability of a man’s sperm to fertilize eggs.

Children are at especially great danger from the phytoestrogen in soy-based formula. According to the Washington DC-based Weston A. Price Foundation, there are many adverse effects reported in the scientific literature, including thyroid disorders, asthma, digestive disorders, calcium deficiencies leading to rickets, high manganese levels leading to brain damage and endocrine disruption. A 1986 study in Puerto Rico found that use of soy formula was strongly correlated with premature maturation in girls. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics admits that early exposure to soy through commercial infant formulas may be a leading cause of soy allergies among older children and adults. The Weston A. Price Foundation is investigating instances of serious physical or medical consequences as a result of eating soy and is contemplating providing assistance to those who want to pursue legal action.

Even though I’ve seen lefty blogs out there claiming that the growing evidence that soy is dangerous and has adverse side effects that outweight the health benefits, I’m going to swear off soy. If I’m going to eat one of my favorite foods; sushi–I’m no longer going to have it with edamame.

Read your labels, they use it as a substitute for meat protein.

SICK AND SICKER is a feature-length movie in currently in post-production that explores the ethics and realities of a government take over the medical profession.

SICK AND SICKER will investigate whether government intervention in the U.S. medical system is the cause of, or the solution to, our problems and whether Canada is really the health care utopia that politicians tell us it is. Criticisms of the U.S. medical system will be reviewed and solutions will be discussed with authors and experts across the political spectrum.

But this won’t be a dry documentary that will put you to sleep. Logan Darrow Clements will bring the abstract concepts to life in dramatic and surprising ways. If he can show how a monkey with darts (above) can beat the investment return of Social Security then you know it will be a movie you won’t forget.

But this movie will not be made unless you help. Here’s how.

Read the Interview with Logan Darrow Clements about Sick and Sicker at Frontpage Magazine, here.

That’s what I have. I put this together on Monday, when I was home, and it took me all week to decide to put it up. It’s because there are certain people who take pleasure in other peoples’ pain, ridicule people for their opinions, and generally take enjoyment in other peoples’ misery that it took me so long. This is like giving my stalkers another window into my life, which is not something I was going to do without thinking about it.

I was talking with my mom on the phone today, as I was home from work and not feeling up to snuff. I have this frozen rotator cuff thing going on on both sides - the right and the left. The right hand side has been dealt with through physical therapy after I injured it two years ago, but I have new pinching pain because I re-injured it in December. I hurt myself about two years ago in a work-related injury, went through physical therapy for it, but the pain never left completely. The left shoulder pain is newer; and is trying to freeze and the pain on that side is excruciating.

I re-injured both sides when I was in a car accident on December 11th and it turned the lefthand side into a pounding syncopated pinching painful, sometimes shooting pain when I attempt the simplest of tasks. It’s just a plain it-hurts-to-move-my-arm type of thing. The right hand side, as I said, was injured previously but it hurts, nevertheless. I have better range of motion on the right. Even though I’d been through physical therapy on the right shoulder to get through the adhesions (break through the scar tissue) that had frozen it, the pain never completely went away. The word ‘frozen’ is an accurate word, by the way. When your shoulder is ‘frozen’, you can’t move it, up or down, or to the side or toward the back. So the car accident, in short, made the left arm hurt like holy hell, and the right hand side hurt like lesser holy hell. The combination of the two has me on the verge of tears most days when I just do simple things like put on my coat, drive, or other things most people do every day and take for granted.

So I found myself home today, and talking on the phone with Mom, which was a comfort all by itself. Mom is a retired R.N., and she had some suggestions for me. She sent me to a website of an orthopedic specialist group, and lo and behold, they had an area on their website about frozen shoulder syndrome.

Here is that information, and the website link below with the pictures and more details about alternatives, medicines and possible treatments.

Description

Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) is a disorder characterized by pain and loss of motion or stiffness in the shoulder. It affects about two percent of the general population. It is more common in women between the ages of 40 years to 70 years old. The causes of frozen shoulder are not fully understood. The process involves thickening and contracture of the capsule surrounding the shoulder joint. A doctor can diagnose frozen shoulder based on the history of the patient’s symptoms and physical examination. X-rays or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies are sometimes used to rule out other causes of shoulder stiffness and pain, such as rotator cuff tear.

I already knew this part, and I’m pretty certain that the left side is not a tear, the pain is similar to the intensity of pain when the right shoulder was frozen and I started going through therapy for it. The reason it was frozen, though, was because I’d been through what I’m now experiencing on the left hand side, but stopped moving it so I wouldn’t experience pain. The result was: classic frozen shoulder - and after a while, the pain stopped, but I couldn’t move it.

Risk Factors/Prevention

Frozen shoulder occurs much more commonly in individuals with diabetes, affecting 10 percent to 20 percent of these individuals. Other medical problems associated with increased risk of frozen shoulder include: hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Parkinson’s disease, and cardiac disease or surgery. Frozen shoulder can develop after a shoulder is injured or immobilized for a period of time. Attempts to prevent frozen shoulder include early motion of the shoulder after it has been injured.

So basically, the answer to the left shoulder situation is - do the exercises I learned in physical therapy for the right side, and move them BOTH. Although you notice that the blood sugar problem is present and as you may or may not know, is something I’m struggling with. Hyperthyroidism is not something I have, but historically my family has issues with thyroid, so this is also something I should follow up on with a complete bloodworkup.

Symptoms

Pain due to frozen shoulder is usually dull or aching. It can be worsened with attempted motion.

In my case, though, it can be sharp pain, going down the arm.

The pain is usually located over the outer shoulder area and sometimes the upper arm. The hallmark of the disorder is restricted motion or stiffness in the shoulder. The affected individual cannot move the shoulder normally. Motion is also limited when someone else attempts to move the shoulder for the patient. Some physicians have described the normal course of a frozen shoulder as having three stages:

* Stage one: In the “freezing” stage, which may last from six weeks to nine months, the patient develops a slow onset of pain. As the pain worsens, the shoulder loses motion.

* Stage two: The “frozen” stage is marked by a slow improvement in pain, but the stiffness remains. This stage generally lasts four months to nine months.

* Stage three: The final stage is the “thawing”, during which shoulder motion slowly returns toward normal. This generally lasts five months to 26 months.

So here is my frustration with people who JUST DON’T GET IT: the recovery from this is very long, and right now, the left hand side feels like there’s a knife stuck in there, right underneath the shoulder cap when I attempt to move it. So, I’ve affixed the pulley to the top of the door, and am pulling my left arm up in the air with the right, and the other way around, to keep it moving and just move through the pain.

Treatment Options

Frozen shoulder will generally get better on its own. However, this takes some time, occasionally up to two to three years. If you have a stiff and painful shoulder, see your physician to make sure no other injuries are present.

Treatment is aimed at pain control and restoration of motion. The first goal is pain control. This can be achieved with anti-inflammatory medications. These include pills taken by mouth, such as ibuprofen or Naprosyn, as well as injections, such as corticosteroids. To restore motion, physical therapy is usually started. This may be under the direct supervision of a therapist or via a home program. Therapy includes stretching or range-of-motion exercises for the shoulder. Sometimes heat is used to help decrease pain. Examples of some of the exercises that might be recommended can be seen in figures 1, 2, and 3.

There are suggested exercises, but I’m not going to post them, they’re at the website. More information on this condition is available at the Barrington Orthopedic Specialists group here.

The first of a two-author, two-part series at TMH’s Bacon Bits

Stem Cell research has come to the fore again, this time through yesterday’s vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to overwhelmingly support the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (HR 810). If it becomes law, this bill would effectively repeal President Bush’s restriction on federal funding of embryonic stem (ES) cell research by allowing federally funded scientists to develop new stem-cell lines from discarded embryos stored at in vitro fertility (IVF) clinics.

The House vote occurred in the shadow of — or in response to? — recent, startling advances by Korean researchers in the quest to create customized human embryonic stem cell lines. These Korean scientists were the very same to have cloned the first human embryo last year.

This topic has ignited passions on both sides. Some scientists and activists believe that embryonic stem cells hold tremendous promise for cures of everything from spinal cord injury and related paralysis to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson. Others believe that embryonic stem cell research is akin to murder, since in order to harvest human embryonic stem cells, one must destroy a living human embryo. The ES-cell proponents counter with the ethical argument that it is wrong, even immoral, to prevent potential medical breakthroughs by squelching federally-funded research on human embryos that would be discarded anyway — and they parade out senile dementia and paralysis victims to plead their case. The other side then parries by suggesting that, through this logic, we should also do research on death-row inmates, since they too are slated for destruction. Then they introduce us to children who were born as the result of the adoption and implantation of unwanted IVF-clinic embryos that were otherwise slated for destruction.

The media battle, however, is clearly being won by the embryonic stem cell forces, despite the fact that this is the more ethically problematic research route that to date has few if any successes to report. This contrasts dramatically with research on adult stem cells, which has resulted in numerous exciting medical breakthroughs. Sadly, popular debate tends toward the newer, flashier research that promises a new world of medicine lying just around the corner.

The chief culprit that obscures this debate is ignorance. (more…)

No plastics in microwave
No water bottles in freezer
No plastic wrap in microwave

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in their newsletters worth noting…

This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Dioxin Carcinogens cause cancer, especially breast cancer. Don’t freeze your plastic water bottles with water as this also releases dioxins in the plastic.

Dr. Edward Fujimoto from Castle hospital was on a TV program explaining this health hazard. (He is the manager of the Wellness Program at the hospital.)

He was talking about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.

This applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat and plastics releases dioxins into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Dioxins are carcinogens and highly toxic to the cells of our bodies. Instead, he recommends using glass, Corning Ware, or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, without the dioxins.

So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He said we might remember when some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

To add to this, Saran wrap placed over foods as they are nuked, with the high heat, actually drips poisonous toxins into the food, use paper towels.

Pass this on to your family &friends &those that are important in you life.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

Being that I’m not much of an Oprah fan and my mom is, at Thanksgiving, she raved about a product called “Airborne Effervescent”. She said it was developed by a school teacher who was sick and tired of getting sick from her students during the winter months. Mom is a big one for the natural remedies, having had a long career as a nurse and appreciating the benefits of whole food and as close-to-scratch-as-possible cooking. Which makes her a pain in the a$$ if she comes over for dinner, if you know what I mean. But anyway, I digress.

It’s an herbal formula, and it comes in a packet that you use kind of like Alka Seltzer. It also comes in tablets. But I saw my dad use it like alka seltzer. It’s an immune system booster. I just love these natural herbal remedies, when I was in High School, I worked at a natural food store. I’m getting some for my guys and me. My dad took it right before we had our Thanksgiving dinner.

Click here if you missed the link (above).

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

Just wanted to mention that recently while we were out to dinner with my parents, I had an Ostrich burger and my husband had a Buffalo burger, and we got into a brief discussion on Mad Cow disease.

The government, my parents concluded, is covering up the existence, prevalence or even epidemic of Mad Cow Disease in the United States. They personally know of two people who died from it, and it’s a horrible thing to watch as it progresses.

It’s about time they’re ‘looking into it’…but as my parents already concluded, it’s not in the national interest for the truth to be uncovered, so is there any doubt that it will be glossed over as non existent?

Here’s a link to a mad cow. Be careful, he’s pretty mad and he swears. I think the ending is pretty lame, though.