All About G

Well, I finally got the referral I’ve been wanting since the beginning of this whole fiasco. I go see the orthopedic on Monday after my stats class. Dr. Getzin ticked me off during my appointment today by saying that I might be misinformed about the plastic bowed fracture info (because he apparently thinks that I don’t know how to research and find valid sites… idiot. I’m only in college and taught how to do proper research by every effing class every effing semester… that kind of thing kinda sticks in your head after so many repetitions), and he kept emphasizing that it’s not an emergency (uh, duh, I knew that. if it was, don’t you think this would’ve been resolved around two years ago when it actually happened?), and that he wants me to be comfortable. He even said that if it came down to it, I may just have to deal with the discomfort for the rest of my life. Talk about discouraging!

So the first thing I want to say is, no one seems to want to listen to me when I want to tell them what it is that I want. Maybe it’s because I’m not like most patients. See, every one I’ve been to wants to just eliminate the pain and discomfort for me. I don’t want to eliminate the pain; I want to fix the bend in my bone. The bend is what bothers me more than anything, and call me immature, I don’t care, but I will get it reset, even if it takes me across the country to an orthopedic that will actually do it. And maybe that makes me weird; I don’t want to make this “easy” for me. I want the corrective/surgical procedure done. I’m more than willing to let them operate on me, do whatever they need to do to get rid of it. I want to get rid of the bend.

Is it that patients want to make things as easy as possible for themselves, or is it that doctors are too afraid to do more… what’s the word… “aggressive” treatments? Do they think every patient is like that? Wimpy? And I sorta wonder what I’m gonna be met with when I meet the orthopedic on Monday. I wonder what he’ll say or do when I tell him my theory. And I wonder what he’ll say or do when I tell him exactly what I want. Will I be able to find a doctor who’ll be willing to correct the bend? Who knows? Will they even believe me when I tell them? I mean, I’ve already told Getzin, and the PTs “I know the pain’s annoying and all, but I just really want to get rid of this bend here.” And it sorta seemed like they were brushing it off… I don’t know. I just hope that I won’t need to go looking for anyone else after talking to this next guy. I hope that he’ll listen, and I hope I’ll be able to get it through to him that I want him to break and reset my clavicle.

Who knows? Anyone have any opinions? I suppose only time will tell. In the meantime, I’ll keep everyone posted.

Comments (3) Feb 03 2009

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’m sure most, if not all of you who read my blog, know that I have a bad knee; a knee which I injure too many damn times, and therefore must have something wrong with it. It’s my right one, specifically, you know. The one I strain my tendons and ligaments in all the time? One wonders why I haven’t blown it yet, like destroyed my ACL or something.

Anyway, this morning I had Kinesiology lab and were were doing Manual Muscle Tests (testing a specific muscle group for strength and to see if there’s any pain, if there’s any at all) and goniometric measurements of the lower extremities (lower body, feet to hips, basically). Anyway, setting aside my minorly sprained ankle (which I may tell you about in a minute), I made a discovery about my knees.

Goniometry is the measurement of angles, basically. In kinesiology’s case, the angles are our joints, thus we’re measuring the range of motion of that joint. When measuring the knee, the start value is our knee extended, straightened, but not fully extended. When we measure the full extension of the knee, we’re measuring how much it hyper-extends. Sooooo, I got my knees’ ranges of motion measured.

When you measure the degree of extension when it comes to the knee, you prop the foot up on something — a sweatshirt, a book, something similar — and allow gravity to pull your knee “backwards” until it locks. My left knee was relatively normal, it’s extension range of motion was 3°, a relatively normal range. My right knee, on the other hand, was a completely different story.

When we propped it on the sweatshirt, it didn’t lock. This meant that it wasn’t fully extended. So, I tried to adjust my foot’s position, but by the time she actually took the measurement, it still wasn’t fully extended. But even with it not being fully extended, the measurement we got was 19°. So, I’m saying that my estimated ROM for my right knee is at least 20°. One of these days, I want to get a more accurate measure.

So, it totally threw me off when I found out my right knee was about 16° more extensible than my left knee. When I thought about it, I figured hey, maybe that’s why I’m having ligament and tendon problems with my right knee, and maybe that’s why I always hyper-extend my left.

So, anyone else have any thoughts to add to this? Any questions you might want to ask? I’ll answer what I can. So be sure to check your comments, because I don’t think I have a plug-in that notifies commenters if/when their comment is replied to.

Oh, before I go, I said I was gonna tell you about my ankle, right? Well, if I didn’t who cares? I’m telling you anyway!

Okay, so, last Friday, some of the female members of the track team met up to play Ultimate Frisbee (I’m not running track this year, unfortunately, so Coach probably hates me…). It was really fun and all.

So the field we were playing on, one of our endzones was actually sloped a little. You can sort of see where this is going. Well, towards the end of our scrimmage, I was on offense cherry picking the end zone. Kris… Kristen (?) threw me the frisbee, and I turned to try and catch it. When I missed, I turned back around and rolled my ankle REALLY bad. I felt a small pop, and it hurt like a BITCH for a while. I walked back over to our end (because we eventually scored), rubbed it a few times, and then shrugged it off and continued playing. While it didn’t hurt all that much (or maybe it did and I was too focused on the game to actually notice) during the game, when I finished eating and went back to my room, it was killing me. Later that night, it was swollen. With the advice of my good friend Steve (yes folks, he’s still very much alive), I propped it up on my desk and the swelling did go down.

I’m checking my ankle right now and… it looks like… there’s no swelling. But occasionally, when I walk, there’s a shooting pain that goes down my talus, and sometimes on the underside of my foot too. It’s not a crippling pain, but it’s noticeable enough to be annoying and slightly painful.

There you have it. Okay, leave comments with theories and questions if you have any. I’ll reply and answer what I can.

Comments (8) Sep 10 2008