Shoulder blues

As a lot of you know, I've been having shoulder pain since last fall. I had an x-ray of my shoulder this past Wednesday and now my shoulder pain has a name: Acromioclavicular Arthritis or AC Arthritis. Your AC is the joint where your scapula (shoulder blade) and clavicle (collarbone) meet. The joint is covered with cartilage and when this wears thin it causes arthritis. Treatment? Physical therapy and anti-inflammatory drugs (Ibuprofen). If these conservative measures do not work within a given time frame then surgery is an option. During sugery they cut off a bit of the collarbone and let scar tissue fill in the joint where cartilage used to be. The results are great for those who have had this surgery, but I'm still hoping that it doesn't come to that.

I had been going to physical therapy before but for various reasons, which take too long to go into, I had not been back since November. Those therapy sessions where kind of exploratory to try and find out why I was having this pain, but now that I've had the x-rays done, we can have more of a focus during therapy sessions.

My first reaction was that I was too old to have arthritis, I was stereotyping, I know. But as I read online and did some research, this type of arthritis is common in weight lifters. How does that explain my situation? I told Nathan that it is common in weight lifters and he said "So you have it because you've been weight lifting Michael for 2 years." I'm not sure that it's all been Michael, but he is one heavy kid and he LOVES to be carried and held all of the time. He's so sweet though and maybe the pain is worth it after all!