How Important are Strong Shoulders?

A few days ago, my wife and I went to Lowe's Garden Store to purchase 8 bags of mulch for our yard like we always have done in the Fall.  But as I bent over the metal framework of the bin to reach in the back, lift up and pull out a 40 pound bag of mulch, something in my should snapped or popped but a severe pain was felt and we had to ask for help...  not only loading the bags in the cart but in the car as well.  I tried to rotate my arm and shoulder a little to see if I could just work it out, but I could not reach forward or upwards without burning pain throughout that area.

My shoulder had been hurting for several weeks when I was at the gym using strength machines, but I had always assumed that it was perhaps arthritis and that strengthening the muscles around the shoulder would help.  It would appear now that 15 days of doing this was simply not enough...   but I fear that this pain is more than just arthritis...  I think I might have injured a tendon or a ligament and the only course of action for something like that is apply cold packs and keeping my arm immobile which is probably fine when I am sleeping but not so much when awake.

Yesterday, I used a garden rake to move some dirt that my wife had poured out from a bag so that we could sow some seeds in bare areas of our front yard.  Reaching out with the rake and bringing it forward into my body proved not to be such a difficult task at all which gave me the impression that whatever had happened in my shoulder was rapidly healing.  I still cannot raise my arm above my head but there is not such a great need for me to do that all the time unless I am reaching for the cat food in the closet.

Unfortunately for me, I suppose, this is the FIRST TIME that I have EVER had a problem with my shoulder and find it odd that I had never realized how important strong shoulders are...

OPDIVO (Nivolumab) linked to Arthritis

        

Case reports on 13 cancer patients suggest that a small number of cancer patients taking the immunotherapy drugs ipilimumab and nivolumab may be at some higher-than-normal risk of developing autoimmune joint and tissue diseases, including inflammatory arthritis, according to a preliminary study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers.

“I don't think anyone is particularly surprised that rheumatologic disorders might be a complication of drugs that boost the immune system,” says study author Laura C. Cappelli, M.D., a rheumatologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. But the new study, however small in sample size, she says, is believed to be the largest published case series of a link between the drugs and the diseases.

The patients described in the new case report make up only about 1.3 percent of the total patients treated with drugs — singly or in combination — at The Johns Hopkins Hospital from 2012 to 2016, Cappelli says, but if further research confirms a cause-and-effect relationship, the rate is likely an underestimation of how common rheumatologic diseases are in patients taking so-called immune checkpoint inhibitors. She notes that patients with only mild joint pain, for instance, or those with already deteriorating health from their cancers may not have been referred to the rheumatology clinic for their symptoms.  READ ENTIRE ARTICLE...

MY CONCERNS:  As a cancer patient who has been and is currently being treated for Melanoma with monthly infusions of OPDIVO, I have been to a orthopedic doctor who tells me that my arthritis is not just getting worse but my X-rays show that my spine (because of the arthritis) should belong to a much older person...  as my lower back problems have worsen during the last year.

T O D A Y

Today has been another good day other than the fact that I did not fall asleep the night before until after 2:00 am which is not typical for me and could have been caused by my cancer meds or by my Thyroid meds and/or condition.  Going to sleep at that hour would not have been that bad, had it not been for the fact that I also woke up 3 times during the night to PISS which points to a problem with my prostate.  Straying away from routine causes my bowels to go on vacation as well as I am sure that they think they need a break as well.

Being 72 puts me in the old age category whether I like it or not with the only exception being that someone in their seventies is younger than someone in their eighties who is younger than someone in their nineties...  BUT, all three decades of age are still considered OLD AGE...

AND, one must also understand that just because one walks a mile on the treadmill and peddles a stationary bike for 20 minutes does not mean that their body is fully conditioned to perform whatever manual labor needs to be performed around the house, especially since I have arthritis in my shoulders, hips, knees, and back.

Sometimes in the late afternoon, my stomach starts to act up and I cannot tell if I am experiencing nausea, acid reflux, or that I just need to eat something.  My first choice is to eat something then have some saltine crackers with a coke and if that doesn't work, I usually take 3 GAS X tablets...