(update added in mid-February) I regret to say I am still dealing with the same shoulder injury. Clearly the things I was doing in December did not solve the problem. Something is missing. When I identify it, I will blog about it.

This has been a difficult season for shoulders. I strained my right latissimus dorsi last August moving a box a yearbooks. It healed in about 3 weeks, but before I got the strength back in the muscles I wound up in the hospital following a colonoscopy. That kept me from exercising for another three weeks. When I finally felt good again, I was in way to much of a hurry to get back to normal. One night I picked up two 5-pound weights and started doing repetitions of an exercise that would have been easy a few months earlier. I felt something pop in my right shoulder.

It wasn't my lat this time; it was probably my deltoid. I waited patiently for it to heal. It got better, but then seemed to plateau. It felt fine most of the time. But if I reached behind me I felt a sharp pain. I was scared to exercise.

About that time Victoria started a thread on her torn rotator cuff. I have found the information in that thread to be extremely helpful.

First I started stretching and exercising the muscle again. There seemed to be a theme from those contributing to the thread that after a period of healing, therapists started their patients on exercises. I had a sheet of shoulder exercises in my file from a long ago car accident. As I gently worked through them the first time, I could do all the exercises except one. I had no strength to move my shoulder in that one way, and it hurt - a lot!

However, knowing what I could and couldn't do, gave me confidence to start exercising the surrounding muscles. I could swim without pain, though my arms get tired faster than they did last summer. Yesterday I swam ¾ mile with my fins so my legs got the brunt of the workout. I can also do pushups without hurting.

Second, I started looking for pressure points. I found two that are related to the injured muscle. If I move it in the wrong way and get a sharp pain, I massage those two pressure points. It gives immediate relief from the pain, and seems to have sped up healing.

I also noticed that my muscles seemed tight in general. I increased my magnesium to the point that it upset my stomach, then backed off a bit. The increased magnesium has noticeably relaxed the injured muscle.

When I started the Blood Type Diet nearly 3 years ago, I had been dealing with an ongoing joint problem in my shoulder. After about three months on the BTD, I realized I had no more joint pain. Though I feel sure this is a muscle strain, I asked myself if there was anything I did back then that I had stopped. Yes, I was taking bladderwrack and DGL Licorice regularly for my stomach. Neither of those supplements are commonly used for muscle/skeletal problems, but I started taking them again.

Since I started doing those four things, I have seen a major improvement. I am sleeping easier at night. The one shoulder exercise that I could not do, I can now do at about half the level I can in my uninjured arm. My arm is a little sore, but it is more of a tired, healthy sore than a hurt, damaged sore.

I thank all of the contributors to Victoria's thread. You have really helped me.

The year my husband and I married, we met another couple who were also newly weds. They have remained dear friends for all these years. Their Christmas card said, "May your Christmas be blessed in a multitude of ways by Him who is worthy of all our praise!