Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  I had been pushing my physical limits for some time...
AH>  but until the pain settled in I didn't consciously add
AH>  everything up.  Seems to me you know when you're overdoing
AH>  it.  I'll know better in future (maybe).  :-)

JB>  Good luck with that! 


          Thanks... I may need it!  Digging down to the next layer, as NT's
are wont to do, I recognize that I come from a long line of people whose
philosophy Elizabeth the Queen Mother explained quite succinctly (IIRC) as
"You just carry on."  She carried on, in reasonably good health,
for more than a hundred years. My family didn't quite match her record, but
they defied the odds as well.  One of the ideas I've been working on is
figuring out what they did right.  Another is learning to acknowledge what
my body is trying to tell me.  If it hurts when I try to do such-and-such,
maybe I need to back off for the time being....  :-)



JB>  Did you - in retrospect - see signs that you should
JB>  slow down with the rotating at the cuff, or did you
JB>  just wake up with it?


          Yes, on both counts.  I did receive a few warning signals.  I
ignored them because they seemed to be temporary.  That's what I'd been
taught to do... but then, as I said, the pain "settled in".  I
woke up one morning when we were getting ready for a camping trip &
expressed some concern over the packing etc. which had to be completed
within forty-eight hours.  Dallas understood what was involved &
suggested we postpone the trip.  In retrospect I'm quite glad we did
because otherwise we'd have been away when the pain hit its peak... [wry
grin].



JB>  As you know, I have such a nerve deficit from surgical
JB>  damage, it took me forever to recognize my boundaries,
JB>  and another eternity before I *started*  to respect them.
JB>  I still often need to cue into secondary symptoms to
JB>  realize that damage has occurred, and those often show up
JB>  days later, so....


          I don't completely understand your problem, but I understand that
you may be receiving confused signals from the nerves.  FWIW I also
understand that the "no pain -- no gain" theory has beeen
disputed in professional circles.  It seems to me that if you have a
problem which is rather unusual you must rely on your own intuition.  So
you're bucking the tide?  SURVIVORS often do that.  ;-)



JB>  Seriously, this isn't the first time it has given you
JB>  trouble, right?

AH>  You're thinking of the other shoulder... [wry grin].

JB>  I trust you'll forgive my ignorance? 


          Of course.  You tolerate mine in good spirit....  :-)



JB>   Seriously, I suppose exercise is in order once you
JB>  have the pain under control?


          Yes, I think that is often the case.  I once felt women got
plenty of exercise doing routine housework... until a chiropractor pointed
out to me that women often have weak muscles at the back of their shoulders
because they spend so much of their time changing diapers, looking down at
small children, washing various items in sinks installed at the ideal
height for a previous generation, etc.  All these activities involve
bending forward... and I do more of the same when I'm crawling around on
the floor helping our daughter put on her splint or retrieving something
she's dropped under the bed!  My usual exercises provide a balance which I
don't get in the course of my daily work.  You may find you are using
certain muscle groups unevenly as well.  People tend to do that when some
part of their body hurts.  The burden falls on the parts which don't hurt. 
;-)



JB>  Coincidentally - *maybe* sympathetically |-) I woke
JB>  in the middle of the night to what I imagine was rotator
JB>  cuff "inflammation". I guess my gland drained itself,
JB>  because it was mostly gone by morning. But, back to you....


          That was my reaction at first... the pain was mostly gone by
morning. Now's the time to ask yourself, "What have I been doing (or
overdoing) recently which involves that particular shoulder?"  You may
be surprised when you add it all up.  But in my experience, the sooner you
add it all up the better....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+