35 things that you cannot do when you have bursitis

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Bursitis can occur when you push yourself too hard physically. Usually at work, where things have to be done if you want to keep your job. If you do repetitive work of some sort for a long time and your muscles are getting tired, day in day out, you cannot afford to lift your arms too high too often. I mean you can, but chances are that you gonna get bursitis one day. Even if you are fit. Basketball players and tennis players and other sports people that have to repetitively lift their arms above their heads get it, fit as they are, if they push themselves too hard. Age is not a question. You can be young or old; it does not matter if you put in the effort day in and day out.
Than one day you stretch to reach something from a shelf or you lift an object (not a very heavy one – just a 2-kilo file let’s say) to put it somewhere higher than the level of your shoulder and bang! There you go, you have bursitis. As simple as that.
A stretch, a stabbing pain and the feeling that your shoulder is dislodged.
Let’s say that you are right handed and your right shoulder is the one affected.
The pain is mild at times and sharp and excruciating other times.
It takes about 18 months of daily exercise and physiotherapy to heal this condition without surgery. Surgery has a 50/50 prognosis.


35 things that you cannot do when you have bursitis:

1. You cannot wash the opposite part of your body to the shoulder that is hurt – eg the left side if you are right-handed.
2. You cannot wash your hair with both hands; you have to use only one – the left one.
3. You cannot brush your teeth unless you are using an electric toothbrush.
4. You cannot dress in tops that have no front buttons or are not baggy enough because you cannot lift your right arm at all.
5. If you are a woman, you cannot hook up your bra at the back so you have to spend a long time turning it and twisting it around your body to hook it up in front and then rotate it 180 degrees to the back and that becomes a kind of a daily torture.
6. You cannot put on a jumper/jacket/coat/cardigan unless you put first your right arm very cautiously through the sleeve without lifting it too much. You cannot wear an anorak no matter what.
7. You cannot open or shut doors that have high handles, unless you are using your left arm.
8. You cannot write or even sign papers on a counter that is higher than your waist – like at the bank for example.
9. You cannot change a light bulb.
10. You cannot turn off the water in the bathroom properly, it always drips because you cannot turn the knob tight enough.
11. You cannot comb and style your hair unless you are more or less ambidextrous.
12. You cannot put things in your cupboards if they need to be lifted with both hands.
13. You cannot cut your toenails, you cannot pluck your eyebrows, shave your legs or armpits.
14. You cannot do dishes, more than a minute, because rotating repetitive movements affect your shoulder and it hurts like hell.
15. You cannot wear sandals or snickers that have buckles or shoelaces because you cannot tie them up with one hand.
16. You cannot keep your arm bent at the elbow for too long, so typing and using a computer becomes very painful and virtually impossible unless you put the mouse and the keyboard on a board on your lap or you use the laptop – but then your neck is affected.
17. You cannot tie a belt or a bow at the back of your body.
18. You cannot carry a bag or a backpack on your shoulder.
19. You cannot hold onto rails in a moving bus or a train to keep your balance, because your left arm it’s not strong enough and you cannot use the right one.
20. You cannot mow the lawn or vacuum.
21. You cannot zip any zip if it’s placed on a side or at the back of your garment.
22. You cannot use scissors to cut anything.
23. You cannot screw or unscrew bottle caps or jar lids.
24. You cannot push and control the direction of a shopping trolley in a supermarket.
25. You cannot hold a pen or pencil in your hand for too long and you have to use it only on a board placed on your lap or a low coffee table.
26. You cannot tie a knot very tight.
27. You cannot touch/scratch the top of your head with the right hand.
28. You cannot put on earrings or buckle a necklace.
29. You cannot tie your scarf around your neck.
30. You cannot cook certain dishes that require a lot of stirring.
31. You cannot hang the laundry on a line out to dry and you cannot put pegs on it.
32. You cannot turn in bed at night without waking up in pain every time you attempt unconsciously to do that.
33. You cannot sleep on your right side, only on the left and even so your right arm and shoulder hurts even more at night than during the day.
34. You lose a lot of sleep and you never rest properly, so you are always tired.
35. When you are tired, your right shoulder blade hurts with every breath every second of the day.

This is a brief account of some of the things you cannot do, but wait, there’s more. Except that I am not going to enlist them here because this has taken me long enough to write already, and I had to have two resting breaks.

Add to this that if you do not take time off work and still try to complete your duties, things are getting worse because you cannot control every muscle in your body all the time and any sudden move reflects on your shoulder producing inflammation. Or like in my case, one day a shelf with files gives way and your stupid body does a sudden move out of reflex and inertia and jumps to catch the sliding files and a ligament in one of the muscles tears. And that adds a pain so intense to all of the above that now the arm and the wrist are painful all the time to the point that the previous shoulder aches and pains become a child’s play.
Add also to this the fact that using your left arm all the time to compensate, might put it in danger to acquire a bursitis there as well. It’s simply too much for only one arm to do all the work suddenly.

You wish your arm would be broken in two-three places rather than all of the above. In that case, after 6 weeks in a cast you would be fine and have no problems.

If you are not an artist, all these would affect you very little compared to when you are an artist and your doctor is telling you that for the rest of your life the best would be not to lift the arm with the ruptured ligament too high, because that ligament can snap as easily as a match any time in the future.