The diagnosis is in..

I've had a pretty busy day - I went to the sports doc who decided to book me in for an ultrasound and luckily I was able to get into the Radiology Clinic within half an hour of my appointment. The ultrasound itself was fascinating - I had a great chat with the technician about shoulder tendons and he showed me the bursitis that has developed in my shoulder as well as some tendinopathy in my supraspinatus. It's not massive, but has definitely been contributing to all of my shoulder pain - the Radiology Clinic has two Radiologists on site and after consultation with the sports doc I had an ultrasound guided cortisone injection right into the bursa. Unfortunately the local is wearing off now and it's all a bit painful but hopefully everything will settle down in the next 7-10 days. The pain was nothing compared with the abdominoplasty needle :)

I skipped RPM this morning as I was still pretty blocked up, but tonight I am feeling much better. I took the girls to the park instead which was great - the temperature and sunshine were just right.

Now for question and answer time:
Gillian asked about ITB tightness and knee pain in her comment to me - are they related?

Gillian, yes, ITB tightness and knee pain are definitely related - if the ITB is tight then it can literally pull the knee cap out of alignment and you then start to get patellar tracking problems. If it goes on long enough it is common to get overdevelopment in the vastus lateralis (outside quad) and develop weakness in vastus medialis (the muscle that runs on the inside of the thigh). ITB tightness can be relieved by foam roller work and it is often worth finding out why the ITB is tightening up in the first place - often the problem comes from hip alignment or foot alignment - this will give you slightly altered biomechanics and cause a consequential tightening of the ITB.