By Patrina on Tuesday, December 05, 2000 - 06:22 pm:

This one's new to me (here I go again) . . .

I got up this morning with pain in the region of my scapula (left shoulderblade), sort of achy. It continued through the day, sometimes stopping completely when I rested, sometimes worse with movement.

Early this evening, I reached for something & got not only the back pain but also a very sharp pain in my sternum. The sternum pain has continued most of the time when I move either arm. Since then, my neck has begun to hurt & then to feel a bit tingly.

Any idea exactly what I injured? It just has all the earmarks of a hypermobile injury, especially since I haven't done anything extreme. Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me.

By Elle Elàn on Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 12:01 pm:

I'm not a doctor of course, but it sounds like you've been cramping your muscles because of the shoulder-pain.I tend to do the same (I have those shoulder pains a lot especialy when I accidently slept on my side or sprained something while turning around in bed).The only way I can relax those muscles and ease the pain is to lie flat on my back or sit in a really good ( arms and head-supporting) chair and consiouncely relax them.Hope you feel better today!

By Patrina on Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 07:02 pm:

Thanks, Elle Elan, I do feel somewhat better today, but I have been having some numbness in the tips of my fingers (both hands). I'm guessing this is related to whatever happened. It isn't constant so I'm making a point to keep my posture as good as possible. I expect this will resolve itself in a few days.

By Gwen on Wednesday, December 06, 2000 - 10:10 pm:

Hi Patrina, it sounds somewhat similar to the upper region aches I get. I think the whole thing comes from my cervical vertebrae but I get a pain under my left scapula as if there is something growing there.. Sounds odd but only way I can describe it. It's as if something is trying to push its way out. I suspect that muscle spasm is what's happening. I also get pains around my shoulder girdle from cervical vertebrae to shoulder joint and from my sternum to my clavicle. Most of the time I can't pin it down to an obvious injury or strain, except maybe if I've done a few too many press-ups. Not that it takes many to be too many but I can't exercise my upper back effectively any other way as I have stuffed up both shoulders and find any "hands in the air" manoeuvres make my arms and hands go numb.
I find it hard to get the thoracic muscles to relax, even with lying flat etc. I find the most beneficial thing is to get my husband ot daughter to "crack" the vertebrae for me and realign them then take a couple of painkillers and lie down with a hotwater bottle. Have you tried that?

By Elle Elàn on Thursday, December 07, 2000 - 11:16 am:

Gwen

have you ever tried relax-exercises? I learned them on an early age and developed a large control over my body, especially my muscles(let the mind control the body and all that) .The downside is that it's very tempting to use that skill to go a little bit further in doing things then you should ,cause it is still gonna hurt later.Now-a-days I mostly use it to relax specific muscles/bodyparts and in combination with - don't laugh- selfhypnoses I even manege to keep the pain down to some extend ( by for instance imagening that my arm isn't there).Like I said it only works up to a certain level of course but hey... every little bit helps! doesn't it?

By Sjottie on Friday, December 08, 2000 - 02:07 pm:

Hello,
Please excuse me for my English, I'm Dutch, but I'll do my best.
The pains you describe I have for a long time and on a daily basis.
But I have a lot of problems with my ribs, they dislocate even when I laugh or sneeze.
In the beginning only the lowest ribs dislocate but now the ones connected to my sternum too.
That's what gives me the pain in/under my shoulder-blade.
I even think my ribs caused the problems with my clavicle that's not in it's right place.
And the numbness in your hands ... I too recognise that.
I also let my husband crack my back and front, but you have to be very carefull because you can easily damage something.
Well, I hope my reaction is readable.
Take care!

By Patty on Friday, December 08, 2000 - 03:47 pm:

Patrina, this is when I call my myotherapist to come and work on my muscles. Pressure on the right spots helps those muscles to relax. When muscles contract - any muscles, anytime, there is a waste product formed for the blood to carry away. If the muscle doesn't relax, the waste product isn't released and it forms pockets that cause pain. Release those pockets through myotherapy and there is less pain. A good therapist can teach a spouse how to do it for those of us with chronic pain.

By Lin on Saturday, December 09, 2000 - 12:00 pm:

i was jsut wondering if this has ever happened to anyone before. i was at a basketball game last night, for my school, and i was playing for pep band. after sitting on the bleachers for a while my back was hurting, but my left shoulder blade didnt feel quite right, not subluxed, just not right, i am used to manipulating myelf, so i kinda messed with it so it wouldnt hurt anymore, and i think i ended up temperorarily pinching a nerve, because my arm went tingly, like i hit my funny bone for a few min. its fine now, but that was weird, and i dont know what i did or how i did it.
Lin

By Patrina on Sunday, December 10, 2000 - 02:49 pm:

Lin,

I've had things like that happen before, too. As long as it doesn't keep recurring (especially in the same place), it's not been a sign of a Problem in me.

Patrina

By Martha on Thursday, December 21, 2000 - 11:56 am:

Hi, I found this site while searching for hypermobile joints to see if I could find anything about excercise and this condition. I know little about it generally. I've been amazed to read all this stuff about subluxation, necks, shoulders, ulnar nerves and tingling. I've had a problem with this for the last four weeks or so, beginning with my upper back going out, which has happened periodically for years, but never with these results. For a couple weeks there was muscle pain moving around my upper, right back/shoulder area. At some point I began intermittant tingling from my shoulder down through my elbow to my hand. I went to the chiropractor who fixed my back, and all the muscle spasms went away, leaving only the tingling coming and going. They chiro sent me for two massages hoping that it's muscular in origin. They have not helped. He now wants me back and thinks it may have something to do with the first rib??? Anyway, I thought hypermobility was just that I had very flexible joints. What does it have to do with spine curvature (mine is slight), subluxation, ribs and all this tingling?

By Gwen on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:42 am:

Hi Martha, are you suffering from culture shock? Welcome to the wonderful world of hypermobility where it's a laugh a minute and all things are possible!
A quick whizz through hypermobility. Basically the reason we have flexible joints is because the ligaments that hold them together are more stretchy than those in "normal" people so that our joints can flex beyond the angle that is considered normal. This is due to a basic fault in our collagen which is the connective tissue that holds the joints, organs, muscles etc in our bodies in place. Collagen is nature's elastic.
While hypermobility can be an advantage for athletes, dancers and musicians who don't seem to suffer pain with their pliability there are those of us who hang out on sites like this who also suffer pain and subluxations of the joints.
The subluxations occur when the ligaments allow the joint to move out of alignment, in a direction it wouldn't ordinarily move as opposed to the hypermobility which is normal, if excessive, movement. Most of us have learned to wriggle, stretch or otherwise contort ourselves to reduce the subluxation. Pulling fingers to crack them and pushing one's hand against the side of the head to get ones neck into place are common manoeuvres.
The pain is a less easy thing to understand. I recently listened to a musculo-skeletal specialist who said that hypermobility of itself shouldn't cause pain in a hypermobile person because the hypermobility is the norm for that person as oposed to someone who
has suffered injury and torn ligaments or tendons. Pain he said was an indication of disfunction in the body, nature's message that something is abnormal.
I suspect a lot of the pain is a result of slight subluxation causing the joint surface to press on or trap a nerve. In the case of the tingling in the ulnar nerve (which I also experience) it could be pinched or stretched anywhere along its length from your neck through to your knuckles. There are quite a few joints to chose from. I'm scheduled for surgery in January because the surgeon thinks my ulnar nerve is slipping out of its groove in my elbow and becoming stretched across the head of the ulnar and this is causing the pain and numbness.
This has made me start to wonder whether our nerves, like our ligaments, can be hypermobile and maybe not regain their original length if they have been stretched (ie after a subluxation) This would mean that the electrical impulses have further to travel and, like in a damaged electric wire, transmission would be faulty and intermittent. I have no scientific evidence to back up what I've just written but it seems to be to be a logical possibility. Has anyone else any theories or knowledge about that?

By Elle Elàn on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:20 am:

I was told by my pt that the pain is caused by the bonemembrane (Hope I spel this right)
Because of the loose joint the bone endings within the joint make a wrong kind of friction wich initionally causes irritation and then inflammation of the bone membrane.It sounded logical at the time.

By Patty on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 11:56 pm:

I think that much of it is that our muscles are over used to hold our joints in place and they become fatigued. When we do anything in our bodies there is a waste product for the blood to carry away. I believe that our muscles contract so hard and so long that they trap those waste products in themselves and that causes pain which causes more contractions which causes more pain and we get caught in a mad cycle that never ends until we find the right therapist who knows how to break up those pockets of waste product and relax the muscle. I am finding that as long as I faithfully get the therapy my muscles don't pull the joints out of alignment as much. My therapist has been gone since mid-November and my SI is so wrong I am living on Tramal again. That doesn't mention my neck!

By Robbie on Monday, February 19, 2001 - 10:47 pm:

I just posted under a different message, but had to post again after reading the above. For 20 years I have had problems with my ribs, sternum, and clavicles. If I reach up I can feel my rib "go out". If I stretch backward my sternum cracks loudly and is extremely painful. I have seen chiropractors since the beginning. One took an x-ray and found scarring around my ribs - I have never had an injury to the area, except for what I described. I have asked chiropractors, physical therapists, exercise physiologists and massage therapists for exercises to strengthen this area and all say there are none. There must be something I can do.
Any help??