Good luck trying to figure out what this image is telling you? I stare at it and I have no idea what I’m looking at….or even for that matter what I should be looking at?

So - any help anyone?

Allright, I’ll fill you in. With having some time on my hands, I thought it might be worthwhile to see if I could figure out how to fix the bum shoulder I have. And why you would ask? Well, as a tennis player when your shoulder goes or is not very good, it’s very difficult to serve or hit any shots that involve that type of motion. I can’t give you an exact time frame or a particular situation that i can recall, but I think it’s safe say that it’s been well over ten years that I’ve had this issue. I used think that my serve was a bit of a weapon!! This didn’t stop me from playing but I had to ensure that I managed it properly. All that meant is that I would not play on consecutive days, lots of ice, of course add in some rest and try to stretch it as best as I can. However I had noticed that it was seemingly getting worse and over the last few years my serve speed had dropped dramatically. Now if you know anything about tennis you would understand that winning your serve is kind of important. To give you a different perspective if you asked me to stand back and throw a football or baseball to you - I probably would have simply smiled or laughed at you. It wasn’t going to happen.

I began my research asking anyone and everyone. I managed to get some good advice (or so I think) from an acquaintance who is not only a professional tennis player but who also has had to deal with some shoulder issues.

She gave me the name of an obvious choice for a medical diagnosis and a suggestion for a physiotherapist. A number of years ago I had been treated by Dr. Galea for an issue with my foot and he is probably the best known sports medicine specialist out there - for more reasons than you would expect. He is well known for being a pioneer of the use of PRP to treat various types of injuries and will use it when he deems it is necessary.

In case you have no idea what it is……

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy uses injections of a concentration of a patient’s own platelets to accelerate the healing of injured tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints. In this way, PRP injections use each individual patient's own healing system to improve musculoskeletal problems.

PRP injections are prepared by taking anywhere from one to a few tubes of your own blood and running it through a centrifuge to concentrate the platelets. These activated platelets are then injected directly into your injured or diseased body tissue. This releases growth factors that stimulate and increase the number of reparative cells your body produces.

Ultrasound imaging is sometimes used to guide the injection.

I had this type of treatment for my foot injury over 10 years ago and it worked. So, you could say, I am familiar with it. So fast forward to now! I called his clinic and was told…sorry, he’s not taking any new patients. But, I’m not a new patient I said…well, it doesn’t matter.

But they said I could see another Doctor at the clinic but that might take awhile - a long while. Sigh…

I did my best to bug them and I was able to score a cancellation appointment a few weeks later. In regards to a timeline, I had decided to start this process at the end of July and had my first appointment on August 10th. As expected not a lot happened at this first meeting. Next step - you have to get an MRI. Oh great….more waiting. They told me it would take a few weeks…..I guess, I should consider myself lucky as it only took 4 weeks. I drove out to Mississauga for my appointment on September 21st. That went well and they were very professional. Well what do you think happened next? Yeap…more waiting. The results take a few more weeks and then of course you need to see the very busy Doctor to review them. To ease the waiting pain he called me with the results and suggested a course of action. Time for PRP into the shoulder.

The diagnosis was pretty straight forward - a partial tear in the labrum and a tear in the infraspinatus tendon. I guess 60+ years of hitting tennis balls is not such a good thing.

The plan - yes there is a plan - was to have 3 injections over a three week period. The first one was on October 15th, followed by the remaining ones over the few weeks. There is no sugar coating this….it hurts. I mean it really hurts. They begin with taking out your blood (that’s not so bad) and then they spin it in some machine for a few minutes and then with the help of high-powered ultra sound they stick you …..(twice). With a very big needle!!! The staff actually complimented me afterwards telling me I had a high tolerance for pain and that the last person had fainted. Yikes…. But the Doctor was great and I think he really has it dialed in….full marks.

What I have not told you that near the end of August I was still playing - remember I had not had the PRP shots. I had my usual game with JB and I remember hitting a serve and I felt this terrible pain in my elbow. I finished the game and the pain got worse….and worse. Over the next few days, I was not feeling so great.

I had managed to have a few treatments with the physiotherapist prior to this and he had been doing some minor treatments on my shoulder prior to the PRP treatments. My next appointment after my tennis game was the very next day and we quickly pivoted to my elbow. Now I was dealing with two things and the elbow seemed to be worse than the shoulder. Since I was basically at square one again, I had to get another medical diagnosis and guess what? More waiting. I couldn’t get into my PRP guy so I lined something up at the Cleveland Clinic at Yonge and Eglinton. I had been a patient there a few years back…..so figured this should work. Nope…my previous Doctor was not taking any new patients…..ugh…..

I managed to get in to a new Doctor at the clinic at the end of September and since I’m sort of pro-active I came armed with an x-ray and ultra sound report that my family Doctor had arranged. But no MRI. This report was more goobly goop (which simply means, I can’t figure it out.) I have never had a fracture or break in the arm but I know that my elbow did act up pre-covid and when tennis clubs were closed it seemed to heal on it’s own. My guess is that I had a really severe case of tennis elbow. And I am truly getting older :)

So as you can see above I can’t straighten my right arm…..and I have not been able to do so for a few years. They tell me everything is connected….you know, the neck, the shoulder, the elbow and the wrist. It’s one big chain. Well, in my case that chain is broken.

This doctor prescriped some fairly strong anti-inflammatory medications and told me to come back in a month. I continued to see my first physiotherapist and also decided to start with another guy at the Cleveland Clinic. So…now I’m cheating on the first guy. What a bad person am I!

And you’ve guessed it - none of this is free. Each treatment is about $100 a session and I guess I didn’t tell you that I’ve spent $2,100 on the PRP. I don’t even want to begin to add this up.

The easiest way to summarize this….I’ve been massaged, shockwaved, done ultra sound and a few other types of treatments that I don’t even know what they are called. I’ve been turned into a pretzel and now…a few months later, I think I am a bit better. Okay….quite a lot better.

I just finished my follow-up with the PRP and they told me it’s progressing very nicely and I should start a treatment/strengthening program for the shoulder. I had already decided to hold off playing tennis and so I put my winter tennis membership on hold. Thus there are no plans to start playing till maybe April of 2023. This will be the longest period of not playing since….. I mean…sort of forever! It sucks, especially because it’s winter and the options to do things are becoming more challenging but into the gym I must go. And I think I can start swimming again…..yeah.

Am I out of the woods yet? I don’t know but I hope so. I can’t afford to do this stuff every week, so it’s time to taper off and get into a well thought out program. Don’t want to lose hope….because if I can’t play again that would really suck big time. So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Anyways, that it for now and thanks for reading.