So today i had two follow up appointment; one with Dr. Hansen who did the actual surgery, and one with dr. Burkhead, who i’m leaning to more as the doc who REALLY wants to help me, to fix whatever’s wrong with my shoulder.

The appointment with Dr Hansen went ok, i got the usual shpeal about Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and he recommended me to another doctor, a vascular specialist. That apointment isn’t until the 23rd of July. He basically said he is done with me, he won’t take the plate out, doesn’t recommend a resection. According to him i should just live with the pain forever. Bleh.

The appointment with Dr. Burkhead was a little more productive. He talked with me about the possible causes, pinched nerves, etc … I conveyed my reservations about having the clavicle resection, so he went over the entire procedure with me. In a best case scenario they remove the plate, shave a bit off of my collarbone, sow me back up and call it good. On the other hand, if the original fracture hasn’t healed, he wants to take out the entire broken piece, removing the ligaments attaching it, and then reattaching them to the end of the bone that’s there. The recovery time for this is 6 months to a year.

So to address the pain, he offered to give me a local anesthetic (lydecane) to help with the pain. Talk about scary, they shove this 3 inch log needle into you, them move it around and give you various injections all over the place, then they take it out and do it all over again in another spot. So after doing this and talking about postponing the surgery he offered to give me a cortizone injection as well, hoping that it could provide pain relief for up to 6 weeks, which would of course ROCK BALLS.

So i went home and took some valium, laid down and concentrated on the pulsing in my shoulder. Hopefully tomorrow i will be able to tell a difference for the better.