Tendinosis/tendinitis

[GregS]

My soft tissues are worn out, leading to multiple tendon, muscle, and ligament tears and a completely ruptured biceps tendon. The ortho surgeon who reconnected it did a poor job giving inadequate discharge instructions, resulting in a second operation to do the same, leaving me with limited ROM, pain, deformity, and weakness. Soft tissue tearing over large areas has damaged nerves, leaving me with neuropathy. Every several weeks something else lets loose. The soft tissue injuries are accompanied by osteoarthritis at multiple levels. I take glucosamine w/ chondritin and fistfuls of over the counter and a couple of prescription analgesics. They, along with cannabis, are not always enough. Regular tx with steroid injections as fast as they can be given are what keeps me reasonably comfortable at rest, but I presently get fifteen to twenty minutes a day until the pain stops me cold. I am a little behind with them, and hope to get that up to a couple to a few hours a day.

 

My injuries are a result of working for a predatory employer. Chronic exposure to ergonomic risk factors caused them. After having made them a lot of money, they kicked me to the curb. In fact, corporate America resists that as a legitimate cause, and the states that administer workers' compensation do nothing more than pay lip service to it. An entire industry is dedicated to risk management, and can be directly translated as "screw the baztards." Most companies have no intention to accept responsibility and work day in and day out to game the system to diminish or deny claims. Workers' comp is not about medicine. It is all about money. The legal forums where hearings are held regarding the issues are as adversarial as any courtroom, and common working people are blindsided when they find themselves hurt after years of service with cruel determination to let them suffer.

Edited December 13, 2013 by GregS

[mrd]

I had tendentious a number of years ago. I was given a few drops of cannabis oil to apply topically and it actually helped a lot. Better than the topical steroids. 

[trichcycler]

Greg,

Have you any experience with DMSO or D-Limonene or Cassia or Calamus with cannabis liquid ?

[Herb Cannabis]

Have you looked into the idea that the pharmaceuticals are what's doing this to you?  Knowing you, I'm sure the answer is yes. 

 

Good to have talked to you again.

[GregS]

Thanks guys. The tissues are torn and tearing. They have become stiff and are no longer supple and pliant. It was overuse that caused the damage by age 42. The point I am trying to make is that ergonomics is a serious issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_factors_and_ergonomics). At one point, in 2000, Bill Clinton signed off on an ergonomic standard to be enforced by OSHA at the end of his term in an executive order after the NIH and OSHA had studied the issue for a dozen years, concluding that the problems were real and that intervention in the form of regulation was necessary and effective. The newly elected republican legislature and GW Bush rescinded it within a matter of just a few short days in January of 2001 after taking office after the election. I was shut down by the state when I enrolled at Wright State University in Dayton to study ergonomics under that school's excellent engineering program, leaving me little to no options to return to work.

 

Medicine is not much interested in causation, but rather how to best treat already apparent injury or disease. For that reason the lawyers use their special brand of evil to confuse the issues. The legal games played under the guise of administrative law by the workers' comp agencies of the several states are intended to minimize employer costs at the expense of injured workers. Republikan administrations, for instance under John Kasich in Ohio, intend to help business to bone us when we are hurt on the job. Corruption in the process is extreme (http://www.toledoblade.com/State/2006/12/18/BWC-scandal-riles-claimants-injured-workers-see-millions-lost-as-they-fight-for-help.html). It would take days for me to explain the schitty treatment many people I came to know received at the hands of business, the state sponsored insurers who only need to know how high they need to jump, and the state bureaus. The Chambers of Commerce and multitudes of business groups have full time lobbies in state houses throughout the country working daily to cheat us. Most any decent sized company has a risk services department that is dedicated to seeing that we stay down when kicked to the curb. Folks don't know until they find themselves in the system with productive lives destroyed just how twisted it is. 

 

I've tried cannabis treatment, to include PB's oil w/ cannabis added and made some of my own. They treat some forms of pain okay, for instance the neuropathy that feels like a cherry red iron plate pressed against my upper back when it flares up. I have not had that pain so much since I began to use cannabis regularly, but the pain from inflammation and torn tissue is difficult to treat with any modality, and likewise with many orthopedic musculoskeletal conditions. Ice is my preferred treatment. Opiates were not effective enough. It is just as well I don't use them any more. Useless and having extreme side effects, they were not a good option. Alcohol works better, but hangovers suck. I am glad that a fatty is the best cure I've found for that.

[Letterhead954]

Sadly Greg, that crap happens. I have a cousin that used to work at a local factory until they shut down. Every claim he ever had, and they were all legitimate (hernia from lifting, surgery on both thumbs from overuse) he had to hire a lawyer just to get his workman's comp. The money to pay these claims comes from every workers paycheck, but they often do everything they can to deny claims. 

Glad to hear that the cannabis is working. It sucks to hurt all the time.