Shoulder pain & the "EMG Scan"

I had an EMG scan done today as part of a "checking out a new chiropractor" exam this morning. Part of my continuing "try to stop the pain in my shoulder" quest. This was after a 20 mile ride at 630 this morning (which contained hills at 9% and 11% grade, at times - a good ride).

This is my take from it: A normal, well adjusted, pain free person's scan would like the diagram in the upper Right corner. My scan is in the upper left corner. These two scans show how well the motor nerves are working (the guy held these little sensors to my skin all up and down my back, on either side of my spine). White means the nerves are working well; green means they are working slightly less well; blue is one degree worse than green; red is one degree worse than blue (and two worse than green); black is off the chart. You can see where I am off the chart - coincidentally, thats just below where my shoulder hurts. Just hearing the guy say "yea, your not making it up" - that was a nice vindication - I'm NOT crazy.

We also did the little dance of "on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, how much has your shoulder hurt at its absolute worse?" I said 8. To which he replied - that might be a 10+ for other people. I like it when people realize that pain is a sliding scale. It means they aren't a complete idiot, which is always encouraging. But it also occurred to me - if last July wasn't a 10, then what is? I've done several things which MIGHT have been a 10, but I am convinced that there has to be pain worse than that out there. Maybe after childbirth I'll revisit the pain scale discussion.

The bottom left scan image shows where the muscles are straining the worst (while sitting down) - you can see how my back muscles on my left side are trying really hard to pull my hip back out (or maybe it is out, although I've gotten pretty good at noticing when it goes out). Interestingly, the two little green arrows on my right side are right in the area where the pain is. Then again, there are little green and blue arrows where nothing seems amiss to me at all.

They took some xrays today - it'll be interesting to see what they think of that. My Doc took xrays last summer right after the PMC (when my arm was really not working so well) & she told me I had a muscle strain gave me some pills which do help in extreme instances, but a half a pill knocks me out for a full day after taking it at night. I'd rather be in pain that semi-conscious. Unless, of course, I'm on a transcontinental flight, and then I'd rather be unconscious above all else.

It's funny though. I've noticed this phenomenon before - you never really FEEL the pain until someone else tells you that 'yea, that hurts for a reason.' Its much easier to put something out of your mind before someone else tells you how you should be feeling.

The saga continues...