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Extreme Workout Pain

Mal12345

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As a possible fibromyalgia patient, I find that working out with weights is beneficial to issues such as chronic back and neck pain. But while doing bicep curls with a 25 lb dumbbell I would experience greater pain in my right bicep than my left. The bicep curls aren't even a necessary exercise but I tossed them into the workout anyway. I thought pain was an ordinary part of any workout, so I kept up the routine, but eventually something went wrong in my right arm. And since the pain would never go away despite the fact that I discontinued the curls, I finally had to go see a doctor.

When the incident occurred it was so painful that I had to drop the weight immediately and apply ice packs and heat to the sore spot. The area is right in the crook of my arm where there is a large bicep tendon. A doctor fiddled around with the tendon for a while and hemmed and hawed over whether there might be a cyst present. He recommended a $2000 MRI. I recognized this as a common doctor scam and turned down the MRI. I just think that if there was a cyst in this particular spot then palpating the area would detect it immediately, especially with his 20 years of experience. And all I feel in that spot, besides the tendon, is a rather large vein right beside it. I would hope he can detect the difference between a hard cyst and a soft vein.

The pain has been there for 10 months now with no end in sight. When I switch to using my left arm for lifting things, I have found that my right bicep has started to atrophy. I have taken anti-inflammatories but with no instructions as to when to take them, how much to take, or when to stop them. Heat and cold packs are beneficial, but then I will simply reinjure the tendon during my daily routines.
 

kyuuei

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The thing with anti-inflammatory medicine is that it only goes so far.. if your bicep is not inflamed, then it will do very little. Its a very specific medication.

I'd go to a different doctor if I were you--the issue is clearly not going away. If you cannot afford an MRI, or if you lack insurance in a country where it is required, simply inform the doctor of that and he may be able to use alternate methods to detect suspicions. MRIs do reveal a great deal about the body, they are not a scam, though I agree sometimes doctors use them a bit too liberally because they forget that the information that that machine creates comes with a price tag.
 

Mal12345

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The thing with anti-inflammatory medicine is that it only goes so far.. if your bicep is not inflamed, then it will do very little. Its a very specific medication.

I'd go to a different doctor if I were you--the issue is clearly not going away. If you cannot afford an MRI, or if you lack insurance in a country where it is required, simply inform the doctor of that and he may be able to use alternate methods to detect suspicions. MRIs do reveal a great deal about the body, they are not a scam, though I agree sometimes doctors use them a bit too liberally because they forget that the information that that machine creates comes with a price tag.

It's tendinitis of the bicep tendon. These doctors and what-not continually push MRIs. Another one used the cancer-scare technique to try and con my wife into an MRI, but it didn't work. I think if an MRI is really required, they won't use weasel-words such as "it might" be cancer or "it might" be a cyst. That's just using an MRI to rule out other causes. Ruling out other causes leads me to ask what are the chances there is something else involved. Give me a hard number. Is it a 2% chance of cancer or a cyst? If they're more certain (i.e., a lot more certain), they will say things like "you need an MRI immediately."

I see it as only one example of a doctor scam. For another example, doctors are required to send in more lab samples for expensive culturing. A friend of mine recently took his older dog to a vet to have an age-related skin nodule removed. This is very common in dogs. But since it might be cancerous, he was charged $450 after it was sent in for a culture and of course tested negative. That test is NOT optional, these days it is required because anything removed from the skin might be cancerous even if it doesn't show any common discolorations or odd shapes indicative of a tumor. It is just an obvious attempt to boost revenue for clinics and labs based on the slightest available reasoning. And lab technicians are paid piecemeal, per culture. Nice!

I've been thinking of going to see a physical therapist I know. The place he works in has impressed me more with their knowledge than all the GPs I have ever seen, such as the one who stitched my brother's thumb without anesthesia based on the specious reasoning that he looks like a tough guy.
 

Mal12345

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UPDATE:

So I visited the PT clinic today. It's such a nice environment compared to the medical clinic, but I'm aware that doctors in this state are overwhelmed with patients. The tendon in question turned out to be the biceps bracchii. It hasn't been bothering me that much lately, and it's possibly finally cleared up completely the last few days thanks to ibuprofen and rest. So I talked about other issues: feet, legs, knees, hips, lower back, middle back, upper back and neck, elbows, bone pain, tingling in the fingers, and how things have been going downhill so rapidly over the past year. And I complained about the local clinic. The PT guy recommended a physiatrist (I had to look that word up) and loaned me a book called "Explain Pain." He explained fibromyalgia but he didn't actually diagnose me with it. He explained how it works although the underlying cause is unknown. He gave me a lying down examination which involved stretching the three major arm nerves in both arms. Afterward, he had this to say:

"Your nerves are on fire."

The good thing is that I don't have to go see a GP anymore because the doctor at the PT clinic is now qualified to screen patients. So no more little room with paper thin walls and a doctor (or PA) with his back turned to the patient typing away at a keyboard on the wall. :wizfreak:
 
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