Friday, July 12, 2013

Shoulder update

It appears my physical therapy has ended for now.  I have reached Medicare’s hard cap for therapy for the year evidently.  I am lucky I suppose that most of my issues with my arm have resolved favorably.  I have real good range of motion, even if my strength is still way too low.  Gabapentin helped me reach this. If I had not started taking this, I doubt I ever would have made such improvements in range of motion.  (As of now, I have stopped taking gabapentin as pain has gone away).  Actually, D3 helped also.  Or it may have been a coincidence that shortly after starting D3 supplements, my stamina improved enough to begin some light exercise with goals of improving my strength.  Neither of these helped enough to get me to think in terms of even a short term recovery from NA.

Those sites that suggest that recovery is an easy thing for PTS/HNA are still wrong, at least as far as my case goes.  I am still weak, especially in my lower back.  My arms seem a bit stronger now, but not to any noticeable degree that would allow multiple reps of an exercise with weights.  My therapist is interested in following my case at least as much as allowing me to briefly drop by to fill him in on my progress and get new exercises.  I figure that I saved Medicare as much as $20,000 by use of PT to get use of my shoulder back. Nothing says I would not have problems in the future even with successful shoulder surgery now.