43 is the new 35

By Dr. Samantha Brody, On February 8, 2012

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A few months ago, around Halloween, I started to have some shoulder pain when I was working out. This wasn’t terribly unusual for me so I ratcheted it back a bit but it kept getting worse. At the end of December I broke down and made an appointment to see the orthopedist. As a physician, I try not to self-diagnose so I played dumb at the appointment but my suspicion was also his suspicion- a SLAP lesion. I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say it’s not pretty. The first week of January I had an MRI done at Siker Imaging in Portland* and the result was as we expected. Oh, there were also a number of more minor issues- fraying, partial tears, fibrosis or tissue thickening, and inflammation. Not a terribly big surprise but a drag to hear, nonetheless.

As I was fully expecting the orthopedist to schedule surgery I was practically giddy to hear him say that he thinks aggressive PT might very well take care of my symptoms. It was almost enough for me to let slide his comment “Well you’re not 35 anymore.” True, that, but really, doesn’t he know that 43 is the new 35?

Anyway, in addition to the exercises, my PT wants me icing my shoulder for 15 minutes 5x a day.  It’s not how I would do it if I were in charge but I’m leaving it up to her (did I just hear you gasp?). In order to facilitate the icing I bought a shoulder ice pack, which thankfully was available in a youth size for little league pitchers. Apparently my shoulder girdle is the size of a 12 year old’s.

I’ve also put myself on a bunch of anti-inflammatory supplements and I’m about to start a 6-8 week anti-inflammatory diet. I’m already a very healthy eater. No wheat, no dairy, very little soy, little sugar, no artificial anything (excepting a very occasional bag of sour patch kids- the dentist told me it was better for my teeth than eating lemons), and only ethically raised meat. But we’re digging in a little deeper for the next few months. No gluten, cooked tomato, peppers, pork-that one is a biggie for me, bread of any kind, potatoes, noodles, or other high carb items.

I’m actually pretty excited to have to put aside some of our standard fare and try some new recipes. We just bought 2 new cookbooks The Primal Blueprint and Well Fed, both paleo cookbooks with lots of very interesting recipes.

Oh, I had my first fail this morning with a smoothie: D’Adamo’s type O protein powder, hemp milk, frozen banana and greens powder. Gag. I’ll be back to post the recipes that actually work.

 

*As an aside I was shocked to find that I absolutely loved being in the MRI machine. It was weirdly soothing. I seriously could have spent the entire day in that tube.

Comments:

  1. Sienna
    03.17.12

    Love this! I’m terribly curious to hear about your smoothie successes too. A bunch of people at work are jumping on the green juice/green smoothie band wagon. The company even bought a juicer for us and someone brought in their crazy powerful restaurant-grade “backup” blender.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts in a separate post sometime about the virtues of juicing vs smoothie-ing. Esp when it comes to greens. I tend to think you want all the fiber you can get. But I imagine there are benefits to juicing your greens too?

    Thanks for your great posts and recipes!

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