Well I've my first 'shockwave' treatment under my belt now and will be going back every week for the next few weeks. It can take up to six treatments for it to work, and I'm inclined to believe that that will be the case for me, as I've had this for so so long without it ever going fully away...
Everything I'd read about it hadn't mentioned how much the actual treatment hurts - just that there was moderate pain, blah, blah blah but oh my god it REALLY hurt. It's only momentary but it's like someone putting a knife right into your bone! -- not 'moderate' in my book. This first session she said she was using the machine on a lower setting as you have to kind of gradually treat the injury rather than just blazing in at full strength...
So I'm not exactly looking forward to the next session (on Friday) but if that's what it's going to take to finally get rid of my tennis elbow then I will put up with it. The pain is only so intense while she's using the machine and it's a relatively quick treatment which is something good! When I got home I put my arm into a make-shift sling and wore it all that evening and took things very easy the next day - it's a couple of days after the treatment now and I am feeling like I can type ok and start to use my arm again. The pain afterwards was more in my wrist and base of my thumb (referred pain) rather than my elbow - and my thumb muscle was twitching ALL day yesterday, so I'm hoping that's a good sign.
It sounds kind of pathetic really but one of the strangest things after it is that I'm to stop wearing my epi-clasp on my elbow -- I ALWAYS wear it and it's like putting on an item of clothing in the morning, so I feel weird without it.
I haven't done any crochet at all since Friday which also feels very weird as it's such a big part of my daily routine. Yesterday, my arm/wrist etc were just too achey to even think about it - I'm not sure about today, I might try just a little bit to see how it feels.
I posted on my Selkie facebook page about how I was having to take a break from crochet for a while and people have come up with some great suggestions for things I can do on those 'bad arm' days instead of crocheting. I love that! There I was, feeling all glum and sorry for myself, only seeing what I wasn't able to do: and other people were able to say ''how about your photography?...'' -- it's really changed how I am going to try and deal with this. I think sometimes you need a fresh pair of eyes to see things for you and point out how good things still are, instead of focusing on the negatives.
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