Thursday, January 29, 2009

An(other) Idea

I'm still not swimming.

I've discovered that what's been hurting when I play the drums isn't my shoulder. Last week, I realized that I could precisely mark the spots on my arm that were hurting, so I did. I took a picture, mailed it to my physical therapist, and she said that what I had marked was actually part of my deltoid.

It can be kind of tricky to identify, because there's a bursa in that area that protects your rotator cuff tendons, too. But it's my deltoid that hurts when I'm drumming.

It's killing me to not swim, and only I only play Rock Band one or two days a week (and not for long even on the days I do get to play). As I've gotten older, though, I really heal poorly from injuries, plus I can't take inflammatories for long because they shred my stomach.

However, I think I may have stumbled onto an idea.

It's my boss's idea, actually, because I went in to work yesterday and he said that he had "cured" his knee pain by rubbing liquid Children's Motrin on his knee.

Hmm. Crazy man. May need to call security.

I didn't think liquid ibuprofen was crazy, necessarily, but I always thought there needed to be some kind of facilitation agent to increase the rate of absorption into the skin. So maybe combining liquid Motrin with Zostrix (a neuropathy cream with Capsaicin, which greatly increases absorption rate) would be potent, at least theoretically.

Turns out, though, that my boss was on to something. Ibuprofen cream was shown to be effective in treating both knee and ankle in clinical studies that I reviewed online. And even though I don't necessarily understand all the mechanics involved, it seems like it would be a great option for me, since it would be bypassing my stomach entirely. So I ordered some and we'll see how it goes.

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