Adhesive Capsulitis

It took about 7 years of slight pain, and then one day--BAM!!! Complete pain in both shoulders, both hips, and both knees. I had no idea what this was all about! One day I was on the riding lawn mower when the pain hit my hip so badly that I involuntarily FLEW myself off the mower and onto the ground! (Fortunately, the mowers turn themselves off when you get off of the seat.)

I went to an orthopedist, who sent me to a physical therapist with instruction to immobilize my worst shoulder for three weeks. After three weeks there was no ease in pain and I couldn't move my right arm to save my life. The orthopedist took vials of blood out of me to test for Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc. I ended up crying uncontrollably, in the physical therapist's office, at the thought of having a terminal illness.

So, fortunately, the tests came back negative, so the orthopedist decided I had Adhesive Capsulitis or "Frozen Shoulder". Now, the physical therapist's instructions were to do the very opposite of what he had been doing for three weeks. Now, rather than immobilize my shoulder, he had to force it to move to "break" or "unfreeze" it. From September to December, three days a week, he tortured me as he forced my straight arm back over my head. I screamed and people stared, but it worked. I was "thawed" enough in December to go home and complete the "defrost" process on my own. Did you know it's almost impossible to torture one's self? It is. But I did it, and by April, I was as good as new.

Then the other shoulder started up again. It never got as bad as the first one, but still, I tortured myself for almost a year until this one went away. Then the hips started getting bad again. The whole time, my knees were almost as stiff as planks and getting up out of a chair, climbing stairs, or squatting down to the ground and getting up again just about killed me! I'd have to torture each joint by bending limbs in ways they didn't normally want to go. For example, I'd have to bend my arm up behind my shoulder blades and lay on it, facing the ceiling. Oh, how this hurt. For my knees, it was purely accidental therapy: Mrs. Tanner had passed away and we had two days to clean out her whole three-story home of items collected for, literally, a full century. I ran up and down stairs about a thousand times, ignoring the pain in my knees, until at length, it really didn't hurt anymore. It was as if the pain had to be "squeezed-out" of my joints.

About 10 years later, I was on a plane, returning from a friend's funeral. I sat next to a Chiropractor and we were discussing auto-immune illnesses, etc.. I told him I had never been to a Chiropractor before, but that the only problem I had ever had was Adhesive Capsulitis. He said that women who had the old silicone breast implants used to suffer from "frozen" joints when the implants developed leaks. It is called "Bio-Chemical Stress". He asked if I had ever worked with chemicals and I said I absolutely had--pesticides and herbicides. I mentioned that I always wore gloves and a long-sleeved shirt, but shorts showing bare legs, and that I only wore a face mask if I was spraying at face level. Often, the breeze would blow and I would get the spray on my legs or face. I always bathed within a few hours, but since our skin is an organ, it absorbed into my system faster than I could get it washed off, I guess. Also, I'm sure I unwittingly inhaled more than my share of chemicals. I also mentioned to him that at that same time, I quite often had a strong metalic taste in my mouth. He suggested that this was caused frm my liver. He said it was probably being affected by the chemicals. OH GREAT!!! I was killing myself!!! He asked if I have had any symptoms since then, and I was able to tell him that I have not had symptoms of any kind in many years. He said that the chemicals are most likely out of my system. I asked if there was a chance that someday they might come back and rear their ugly head in the form of cancer, etc. This, he didn't know. Nevertheless, I had just received some life-saving free medical knowledge. STAY AWAY FROM PESTICIDES AND HERBICIDES! It was good to have the mystery solved about why my joints froze-up; I just wish I had knows sooner. I could have unknowingly killed myself!