How To Conquer Bursitis, Sort Of

For the past 5 or so years, I've been struggling with pains in my shoulder joints. It would come and go, be worse at some times than others, or even be gone entirely for stretches of time. I didn't really think too much of it until last year, when the constant throbbing pain lasted for almost a month, in both shoulders, and rendered me unable to move my arms above shoulder height without extreme pain. My doctor told me it was bursitis, which is the inflammation of the fluid filled sacs that cushion your joints. I got cortisone shots in both shoulders, which cured the pain within a couple days.  5 or 6 months later, though, the pain came back, and I had to get cortisone shots again. My doctor told me that I wouldn't be able to just get a shot every time the pain flared up, so next time it would probably have to be physical therapy.

So, I crossed my fingers that that was the last of it. But last month, I could feel the old familiar pain starting in my joints. Not particularly wanting to have to go to the doctor or get physical therapy, I tried to nip it in the bud before it got too much worse. I did a bunch of research, and found a few things that completely cleared it up!!

Here are a few of the things that worked for me, and would probably work on bursitis or joint pain in other areas of the body as well!

• Stop sleeping on your side and/or make sure your pillow is tall enough that your weight is not resting entirely on your shoulder. I try to sleep more on my back, and I also bought this SidePillow by Tempur-Pedic. It's really firm, so I put my regular pillow on top of it, and this keeps a lot of weight off my shoulders.

• I randomly read that DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide) was beneficial for joint pain kind of things, so I bought some on Amazon and tried it out. It's not FDA approved for human use, so... do with that what you will. To my surprise, it worked!! It dulled the pain within minutes, and after a few days of applying it a couple times a day (in combo with these other things, of course), the pain was gone!! A few hints on use: pour a bit into a bowl, and then mix with water. I used a q-tip to apply it directly to my shoulder, as well as a few inches around the area. The first few times I used it, my skin got really really itchy, but it eventually went away after a few minutes. Subsequent uses, my skin was less itchy. I really credit a lot of the healing to DMSO!!

• I did various forms of these exercises every day, adding weights when it hurt less.

I hope these can help you if you're struggling with joint pain!