Friday, October 26, 2007

Yoga injury and Chocolate Therapy

I biked through the city a little before 7am today. Woke up at 430am and couldn't go back to sleep comfortably. At 530am I gave up my attempts to settle back into sleep. My right shoulder is acting up on me and has for a couple of weeks. It doesn't have anyting to do with my knitting and my sore finger joints; this is a yoga injury... When attempting head stands at home a couple of weeks ago I did something funny that made my shoulder hurt. I don't really know what happened. When thinking back, I think I was about to loose my balance and when trying to catch it again I overcompensated and put more pressure on my right shoulder. Or something. Anyways, it's been bothering me and it's gotten way worse the last three or four days. Now it aches and hurts all the time as opposed to before when it took a funny movement for it to act up.

I cancelled my yoga class this morning as I realized yesterday that I wouldn't be able to keep up. Darn. I was actually looking forward to being able to tell everyone that in the last two weeks I had gone to three yoga classes at the gym and had practised at home four times. Now I'm starting to think that maybe all that training has increased the pain in my shoulder...

Have tried putting heat on it to make it ache less but I can't say I've noticed any difference. Maybe I should try something cold? I honestly don't know when to keep aching body parts warm and when to keep them cold. Does anyone else know and care to enlight me?

Boyfriend suggested that I'd put on some "pain relieving cream" on my shoulder but the only one we had at home contained ASA and I'm oversensitive to that. Haven't had ASA since I was 6 years old and I don't know how I'd react to it now. I'll see what else I can find in the pharmacy on my way home today.

I'm glad it's Friday. Pain always makes me soooo whiney and I can't wait to go home and get msyelf a bowl of Ben&Jerry's Chocolate Therapy! A couple of weeks ago I found a couple of pints of Chocolate Therapy in my grocery store. It's apparently sold in pints here as a limited thing. I bought two pints that evening and I'm glad I did 'cause the next time I was in the store, they were all out of them. I have a 7-Eleven faily close to my apartment and I'll go there sometime this weekend to see if they have more pints so I can stack up a bit in the freezer.

2 comments:

essjay said...

I'm so sorry you are experiencing so much shoulder pain - that is no fun! You'll probably want to try some ice - keep it on for only 20 minutes and do that a few times. When I "hurt" my shoulder when I first started knitting it was all ice. If you use heat see if you can use Moist heat. I use a heating pad approved for moist heat, get a kitchen towel wet & slip it in the cover and then I have "moist" heat and it feels wonderful - like a mini sauna!

I'm glad you at least have Ben & Jerry's to help make you feel better! I'll hold my thumbs that you have a restful & relaxing weekend. :kram:

Anonymous said...

Dear Anna: Make sure to rest until the injury heals completely. Stay warm, and don't go to class until you are 100% sure that the area has returned to normal. Most of all, remain calm within your mind and know that the issue will resolve itself.

When I did my teacher training, I endured a neck injury due to headstand, so I totally know how you feel. These things happen to everyone, but the good news is that the final result is a deeper awareness of your body. Nevertheless, it's super-frustrating to be in a body that doesn't work! After a week of neck pain, I remember feeling like the damage was permanent...don't let yourself follow this line of thinking!

If you need to take something, try ibuprofen (I'm sure they have name brands for this in Sweden). This pain reliever tends to be easier on the stomach.