All About G

I think that this appointment, the one I had with the PT, has to be the shortest appointment I’ve ever had. I went in at around 11:50, and I was calling for a ride at around 10 after noon.

So what happened was really simple; Carl, my PT, came in, asked how I was doing and whatnot. I told him that I was fine, and as I was handing him the x-rays to look at, I told him about how I came across something over the weekend (see this to learn what I’m talking about) which led me to believe that the problem with my clavicle was a bowing fracture. He noticed something weird with my rib (and I agree it’s weird, but I didn’t see, and still don’t see, what that had to do with my clavicle, I know for sure that it was irrelevant and non-problematic), and then left for what felt like a million years, but was probably only ten minutes.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to think, because when he was looking at the x-rays, he didn’t seem to be listening to me, but I didn’t let it deter me. While he was out doing whatever with the x-rays, I was formulating an argument to use along with my in-depth analysis. I’d make him listen and understand and at least acknowledge where I’m coming from.

So, he returned, gave me back the x-rays and whatnot. He told me he wasn’t a radiologist so he didn’t know what is was, but something in the clavicle, to him, seemed off. I told him, once again, about what I thought about my clavicle having at one point a bowing fracture (I explained what it was and typical symptoms, and basically, I was being as detailed as I could), and described how my symptoms matched the case study that I came across. Most likely to make sure I was being valid with my info, he asked me “What site did you find that on?” And I told him “Hawaii.edu”. .EDU websites are, obviously, usually education institutes, and I even told him how to find the page. We were talking about treatments, because he had said “But since it isn’t a break…” and I said “You can’t reduce something like that, because it isn’t a clear break. I think at one point I might have had a hairline fracture that healed, but that doesn’t mean the bone at this point can be reduced.” He agreed with me on that.

Once I was finished saying what I had to say, he said to me: “I think you should schedule an appointment to see Dr. Getzin again. I honestly don’t know what to do with this; your tendons are fine, your joints are fine, your muscles are fine. Did those exercises help any?” I told him ‘no’ an he continued with “I can’t help you with this, I’m sorry.”

I told him that it wasn’t a problem, and I thanked him for listening to me and my input, and I went off on my way.

So now, I’m scheduled to visit Dr. Getzin at 1:30 tomorrow, and I’ll tell him everything I’ve learned and what I think, and see what he thinks. He seems like the type of person who’ll listen, so hopefully my expectations will be met. I’m expecting him to refer me to an orthopedic because at this point, even the PT has established that this is quite strictly a bone problem. I can’t think of any kind of doctor that would be necessary to see other than an orthopedic. And for all I know, he won’t refer me at all. Of course, if it comes down to that, I’ll find a way to get to an orthopedic myself, but Getzin doesn’t seem like that kind of person.

So my verdict? I think the PT I was seeing wasn’t conceited, and I’m glad he listened to me and didn’t brush me off like I didn’t know what I was talking about. He seemed to think that I was perfectly valid with the opinion that I had formed. And he told me, straight up, that he couldn’t help me with it, instead of acting like he could. So props to him.

As for the next step… well, I’m sure I’ll find out tomorrow.

Comments (2) Feb 02 2009

Finally, after two years of brain-wracking. Finally, after getting confusion from every single doctor. Finally, after researching and trying to figure it all out, we’ve finally discovered what the problem is with my clavicle.

Mom was looking into bent clavicles, and discovered this. It’s known as a “bowing” or “bowed” fracture.

It’s not common in people my age, but what happens is the bone bends from a compression force. There isn’t a visible fracture; instead there are micro-fractures along the concave of the bend in the bone. Logically, this kind of thing is way more common in younger children since their bones aren’t fully developed like an adult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for a young adult to get a bowing fracture as well.

My chiropractor once told me that bones are fully hardened until a person is around 19-20 years old. The bend occurred when I was 17, so maybe what happened was that my clavicle was just soft enough to bend. The symptoms of the case you read above match mine perfectly; deformity in the bone, tenderness only where the deformity is, surrounding joints are unaffected, and I still have a full ROM and perfect sensation. This explains so much for me, especially the question of why it hasn’t healed. A bent bone can’t heal back to normalcy since the fractures are microscopic. I don’t think it can really heal at all since the bone is still bent. Take a look at the clips and the pics that I put up so you can see for yourself…

Sorry about the awkwardness of the video clip. It’s a bitch trying to tape yourself with barely any reference as to where you’re pointing the camera. But, if you pay attention, you’ll see that there’s a very clear difference between my right clavicle and my left clavicle. You’ll see them better in the pics below:

(in order: frontal view *the image is a reverse reverse, so that means the left clavicle is on the left side of the pic*; left clavicle, right clavicle)

So you can tell which one’s my left (the deformed one), right? If not, then you’re really blind.

Wanna know the best part? You can’t reduce something like this, especially if you’re around my age. You’ll usually need surgery to correct it. And, isn’t that what I’ve been telling everyone from the start? I only blogged about it two posts ago (refer to Referrals, Referrals, More Fucking Referrals for more info). It sorta makes me want to smack several people around.

As for the cause of a bowing fracture, typically it’s a longitudinal/compression force, like I said before. Now I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m quite intense when it comes to sports. And, especially in contact sports, I’m downright aggressive. I ram into things all the time, particularly with my shoulder. I do remember one of many times I was, for example sprinting to save a volleyball, and not really paying attention to where I was going, and I slammed into the wall. Luckily it was padded. But it was most likely one of those instances, or maybe an accumulation of those kinds of incidences, that caused the bowing fracture. Usually it would be the type of thing to cause a fracture, but because what I ran into was padded, the fractures were microscopic instead.

Sooooooo… who was acting like my opinion wasn’t valid? Who was saying that orthopedic surgery probably wasn’t the answer? Yea, well, to all of you idiots who think I don’t know what I’m talking about just because I don’t have those extra letters after my name like you do, I told you so. Maybe that’ll teach you to not disregard what I have to say.

Comments (1) Jan 31 2009

I woke up at 8am today, and got a ride over to the Island Health and Fitness Center for my 9am appointment.

My verdict? I don’t really know what to think or say.

I’d like to say we didn’t get anything accomplished, if only I knew what they, in particular, were trying to accomplish. I know I didn’t get anything accomplished.

We started out with examining my clavicle, and ended up with giving me exercises for my lower trapezius muscle (on my left side, back), because my left scapula moves differently compared to my right scapula. Wanna know how? See for yourself:

Note: just watch how both scapulae move. You’ll see a subtle difference. When the left scapula moves drastically different compared to my right, that’s due to the motion of my arms, because I was working in a very cramped space. Pay attention to the very slight differences, which means you’ll have to actually look for them.

PS – Those clips are not suppose to imply anything sexual at all, to those of you who are too retarded to think otherwise. You can see the scapular movement best when there’s nothing covering it.

In my humble opinion, I feel like the freakish scapula has more to do with the fact that I’m right handed. If it was somehow affected by/affecting my clavicle, I have the feeling the AC joint would’ve been involved and/or affected as well, and it isn’t. So in terms of fixing my clavicle problem, I’d say personally we got zero accomplished.

Moving along, if anything’s changed at all, I’d say it’d be my SC joint, because it feels like they strained something trying to distract it. Idiots. Whatever, I’m just gonna go through with this trial, which I already know isn’t gonna fix anything, and get rechecked so I can get referred to the orthopedic already. I’m assuming they’re keeping surgery as an option when nothing else is gonna work. *sigh* You would think they’d get that it probably would come to that, but whatever. Like I said, I’ll go through with it (unless they do something stupid like fuck up my SC joint or something to that effect), and I’ll be patient. I know I’ll eventually see who I want to see.

Comments (3) Jan 29 2009

I was going to wait until I found out if this was going to really work, but I’ve been so pissed about it that I had to let it out.

I don’t know how many of you remember this, but I have a problem with my left clavicle that dates back almost two years. I searched and realized that I actually didn’t tell you all about it, so I’m gonna give you the whole gist of it.

One day in late March, I woke up as usual, went to school as usual, and did the usual high school senior stuff that we typically did. As the day went on, however, I had noticed a pain on my clavicle that was bothering me like anything. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it hurt.

So, I went home after school, and told my mom “Something’s up with my collarbone. I don’t know why, but it hurts.”

So Mom turned on her little office light and looked at it. She looked slightly bewildered and palpated it carefully, and then proceeded to say “It’s bent.”

I was shocked beyond words. What the hell? Where did THAT come from? I palpated and found that, yes it was bent, and it was very worthy of a “wtf” moment.

Anyway, we scheduled immediately for me to see Dr. Jay the following day. He took a look at it, and then we got an x-ray, and he took a look at that. To our confusion, nothing showed up. He prescribed I have my arm in a sling for a week and he said that he was going to refer me to an orthopedic.

Unfortunately, he never did (and maybe it was better that way, because I didn’t have health insurance, and that shit’s expensive). The bone’s been bent ever since, and it hurts on and off all the time. I can’t sleep on that side, I can’t rest my head on that arm for a certain period of time, lifting isn’t a good idea, and sometimes it just hurts for no freakin reason.

Last year, I was on the track team, and in the hopes that maybe someone could figure something out, I went to the AT room (athletic training). They said “let’s treat it as a soft tissue problem” and gave me a bag of ice. Let me tell you, the ice was very far from helpful. In fact, it hurt like hell to have the ice on it even without putting any pressure on it at all. So I gave up, and hoped that some day I’d either have the money, or have health insurance, to afford seeing a specialist. At that point, I figured that since no one could figure out what caused it, the only way to fix it would be to break it. And I was perfectly accepting of it, albeit a little pissed since I had gone for so long without breaking anything.

Now I bring you to the present, 2009. Because of financial issues, we’ve got a shot at getting Medicaid. And as soon as I found out, I thought to myself that hey, this would be the perfect opportunity to see an orthopedic about getting this damn clavicle fixed, especially since it bothers me more and more.

Since I didn’t have a yellow pages handy, I went to the next best place to find out info on medical stuff — the health center here at IC. I went in with a clear mission: find out about the orthopedics in the area and get contact info so I can get in touch with them and discuss fixing my problem. It turns out that doing this wasn’t anywhere near as easy as I thought it was going to be. The nice receptionist at the desk told me “We have an orthopedic here… well, he knows sports medicine really well, and he’s a top doctor.”

Ironically, this doctor was the doctor I was trying to be referred to by the AT’s last year (because apparently if I’m on a sports team, I have to get to referred to him if the AT’s see fit… lame asses). I had to see a PA first (physician’s assistant) and was referred to the MD later that day.

Dr. Getzin (that’s his name) took a look at me, and the x-rays I had done earlier that day, and he couldn’t figure out what had happened to cause the problem. In the end, I was referred, again, to see a physical therapist for rehab so that we can “get rid of the discomfort and pain.”

That’s the end of my story, but it’s not the end of my dilemma.

I don’t understand why nobody seems to be listening to me, like they think I’m completely clueless about what’s going on, like I don’t know anything, like I’m not studying to be a doctor who specialized in musculoskeletal injuries and treatments. I’m not interested in finding out the cause of the bend; I’ve accepted the fact that shit happens, like how a friend of mine dislocated her shoulder and tore her labrum in her sleep out of nowhere (she needed surgery for it…). What I’m interested in is getting this bone of mine straight and normal again. No one listens to me when I try to give my opinion, and I don’t understand why, but everyone seems to think this is a soft tissue problem. Hell, Getzin was saying that this could be a chronic overuse injury from playing volley-ball.

Okay, first off, how the hell is it an overuse injury? I only played volleyball once a week. That’s bullshit, and it sure as hell ain’t overuse. It’s not a soft tissue problem, I don’t think, because the only place where there’s pain is where the bend is. If soft tissue was some how involved, I would think the pain would be more spread out. And it’s only the bone that’s tender to palpation, and that hurts whenever I do something like put some kind of compression force on it. The AC (acromioclavicular) and SC (sternoclavicular) joints are perfectly fine, they aren’t strained or out of place. Again, if that was the case, the pain would be there.

What pisses me off about all of this is, like I said, nobody is freakin’ listening to me. Getzin said he wanted to fix this by eliminating the discomfort and pain to make my life better. The x-ray technician was saying that you can’t just reset the clavicle because of all the pressure it’s under, and surgery it just not worth it.

But you see, seeing a physical therapist isn’t going to get rid of the pain. A physical therapist can’t straighten bones. And just how would anyone know whether it would be worth it for me to get surgery except only me. I’m the one that knows what she wants for her body, not the rest of you fuckheads! All I know is, while nobody can figure out what caused it, it’s most likely a bone problem that can’t be fixed with just rehab by a PT. It needs to get broken and reset, and I don’t care. I’ll probably have to get surgery done, but I don’t care. Put a metal plate in me, I DON’T CARE!!! All I want is just to fix this bend, because it’s the bend in the clavicle that is the biggest problem, my ONLY problem. I want to be able to move around all I want without having my clavicle suddenly hurting. I don’t care about the cause of the problem, I WANT A GOD DAMNED SOLUTION!

I’ve no idea if Getzin would even think about referring me to an orthopedic once it’s clear that freakin’ therapy isn’t going to do shit. Whatever. Once it’s confirmed that I have health insurance I don’t care. I gonna find someone who will fix this fucking problem of mine. And once I get out of school and become an orthopedic doctor myself, I’m not going to make any kind of recommendations as to how I think they’re problem is gonna be solved until I get an opinion from them as well, to try and accommodate and figure out what’s truly best. You see, people aren’t stupid; an individual knows their body better than anyone else. What happens when someone has a problem come up that they don’t understand? They look shit up to learn more about what goes on, and then they look for people that will best fix that problem. I knew a bunch of things about injuries just by looking up stuff even before I went to college and learned even more. HOW ELSE DO YOU THINK THAT WE FIND THOSE DOCTORS THAT WE NEED?! WE LOOK IT UP! We’re not fucking stupid! I’m not stupid! I may only be a sophomore undergrad, but I know things! I know myself better than you ever will, so FUCKING LISTEN TO MY FUCKING OPINION WHEN I GIVE IT TO YOU!!!

Comments (2) Jan 26 2009