Exercise can be bad for your health!

I don't do pain.

I don't mean that I turn into a gibbering wreck whenever someone steps on my toe, quite the opposite; I mean that I don't seem to experience pain in the same way as other people. For example, when I broke my wrist I was taken to casualty, calmly walked up to a nurse and said "I've broken me wrist"; and when I had a colposcopy, the woman before me came out in floods of tears saying it was the most painful experience of her life, but when the consultant asked me if I was ok I told him it tickled. Apparently I was the first person ever to tell him that.

I have been in pain. Once when I tore my calf muscle, and again when every intercostal muscle was stretched during surgery, which made breathing an interesting experience. But those are the only times I can think of.

So why the thoughts of pain, or lack thereof? Well, round about last October I started to get a crawling sensation over my left shoulder. When this had been going on for a few weeks it struck me that someone else might be in a fair bit of discomfort with this - and the fact that it had been with me for quite a while indicated that something was probably wrong. So I went to see my doctor.

Luckily for me, my doctor understood. But then she appeared to have read my notes and realised I didn’t seek a consultation very often. Her diagnosis was a probable trapped or pinched nerve, and I was promptly referred to a physiotherapist.

Which is where I ended up yesterday morning. In the intervening months, the sensation first first grew to be more like pins and needles, then stopped when I was off work for a week over Christmas/New Year, and restarted when I went back. How many people find their work a pain in the shoulder, I ask myself?

We went through the standard questions about age, lifestyle, etc. Was my weight steady? Unfortunately yes, I’d love to get it down, but I lack the willpower. How is my work desk organised? Correctly, with all the relevant height adjustments and wrist supports, but I do sit on the edge of my chair (at home as well). Do I do any sport or other exercise? Contemporary ballet, once a week. The physiotherapist wasn’t expecting that answer.

She wasn’t expecting the next bit either. From a standing position, I was asked to lean as far towards my feet as I could. So I put my hands on the floor. “You’ve got a very flexible lower back and hips!” “Thirty years of ballet …” And that was the start of a very thorough examination. Lifting my arms forwards and above my head, the left shoulder crunched a bit; lifting them sideways it crunched a whole lot more, going up and coming down. She held my shoulder in a different position and asked me to repeat the movement; no crunch on the way up this time, but it was still there on the downwards movement. I suddenly struck me I'd had that crunch for some time; I remember it being present every time I did the 5th port-de-bras when I was preparing for my Cecchetti elementary ballet exam, and that was more years ago than I care to admit.

Anyway, after quite a bit of examination, observation, manipulation and marking my back with small red dots (she did ask my permission first), I have a two-fold diagnosis. Firstly, because of the extreme flexibility in my lower and upper back, I tend not to use my middle back much, and it’s got tight. Secondly, my shoulder blades are not lying square, but slanting down and back; pretty much perfect ballet posture really – a gentle downwards slope of the shoulders, and breadth across the chest attained by drawing the shoulder blades inwards. And this is quite possibly either (or both) wearing the joint and pressing against the nerve.

So there I have it. The only exercise I enjoy is bad for me!

It reminds me of an acquaintance who, many years ago, argued that avocados are evidence that, if you like something, it’s either immoral, illegal or fattening – even if it’s a vegetable!

An overheard conversation

You lnow those moments when you overhear a snippet of conversation on a bus or in a coffee shop, and can't quite believe what you've heard, so strain to hear more?

Yesterday, my mother held a party to celebrate her 80th birthday, in a church hall with around 100 guests, mostly that sort of age themselves. It was towards the end of the afternoon that Luc came over to where I was putting away the empty wine bottles and told me he'd just overheard a most bizarre conversation between two women, probably a mother and daughter.

What first hooked him was the question "So how was the funeral?"

And the reply "It was wonderful!"

Then a few lines he couldn't hear, followed by

"Well, you can put him in the ground if you want. Or you can burn him. Do whatever you want"

Followed by more he couldn't hear, then

"I've buried him ..... After all, he was my rabbit!"