I didn’t really think that a physical ailment would hold me back from playing poker, but I’ve got one that has become a factor.

Two months ago the muscles around my right shoulder (I’m right handed, but can use the mouse with either hand) became sore. Most activities weren’t a problem, but reaching up or straight out to my side hurt, sending a quick flame of pain through muscles in the upper arm. Since neither of these are common or necessary movements in my usual day, I just avoided them.

It was like a muscle strain, only it didn’t get better. At first, it didn’t get much worse either. Exercising, stretching didn’t seem to have much affect so I just continued not using those motions that hurt. I also tried using the mouse only with my left, and adjusting my posture and computer sitting angle because I thought that the rigid holding positions while at the computer might either be a cause or a reason why it wasn’t improving.

Recently though, the left side started to get similar pain, but only when at an extreme version of reaching or stretching, so I finally tried to go to my doctor. To make the story more complicated, the office manager apparently “transferred me out” in 2004 so that I’m no longer a patient in spite of the fact just last year I had something come up where the doctor sent me for tests and called me. And the office manager is away, the doctor is not taking new patients, so I have to wait until the office manager is back to talk to her.

So, I went to another doctor. He tells me that I have a rotator cuff injury, puts me on Naproxen, directs me to a physiotherapist. I go to the physiotherapist, he tells me it’s not a rotator cuff injury, it’s a frozen shoulder. Gives me TENS for half an hour, some ultrasound, and then some very painful, veeery painful stretching of my shoulder.

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What has this got to do with poker? Well, I think that the way that I “freeze” my upper body while working on the computer is not good for the shoulder. Especially when I’m multi tabling and actions are constantly required, the rest of my body is frozen in one position while all I move is the mouse. So I’m planning to cut down on the multi tabling, and force myself to move around once in a while, roll my shoulders, stretch, that kind of stuff.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of clear documentation on frozen shoulder on the internet, partly because the cause seems to be unclear. Apparently in a lot of cases it just seems to freeze with pain, the pain subsides but continues to lose mobility, then it unthaws. Each stage apparently lasts a few months. It does, however, fall into the category of Repetitive Stress Injuries which include carpal tunnel.

Right now since the physiotherapist seems to think stretching is good, I’m doing stretching, but my plan is to try to get back with my regular doctor, get his opinion, keep going with this physiotherapist for now, use up the Naproxen as I don’t think it will cause damage and it was prescribed even though it doesn’t seem to be helping and the physiotherapist implies (but can’t actual say) that it’s not going to help.

I’m not enthralled with this physiotherapist either as he wouldn’t come right out and answer my questions about doing things on my own to help, plus he became very aggressive communication-wise after the aggressive stretching that he did. I don’t know whether this aggression came from being annoyed at my questions, from it being late (as I was the last patient), from feeling he needed to be aggressive with me since I had taken so long to get around to seeking treatment, or whether it came out of the physical aggression from the stretching?

Or am I hyper-sensitive to people showing aggression because of my poker play? That’s an interesting hypothesis.

• my Frozen Shoulder; the Story and Recovery(?)