The Philadelphia Mountain Biking Association

After almost two weeks I am finally healing nicely... (and thank goodness so is Dirtmerchan/Luigi... hope you continue to have a speed recovery) Also this is kind of a long post. So the short of it... MTB is all good & can fix/heal anything!

I say finally b/c I truly believe that I was misdiagnosed at the hospital about my shoulder. I think that I really did have a dislocated shoulder for almost two weeks. I know that this seams very strange & I wouldn't believe/state it unless I truly experience it.

Let me explain up until last Wednesday I was in a lot of pain (July 2nd) I took the dog for a run & the pain was too intense to run & I had to hike. Tom called me during his ride & said that they were at Summit and taking the trail back so I decided to meet them at the Pavilion... now I need to explain that my bike is still pretty new (only had it for about 3 weeks) and that it recently have received many upgrades... included a new rear shoch & fox fork. Well the Fox fork that was placed on the bike is a 32 MM (I was using a 36 Tallis that used a 36 MM... impressed yet... well wait there is more). This upgrade was done on Tuesday & I really wanted to take my new (improved) bike on the trails. The new shock also put the bike in a more agressive angle b/c I was able to utilize more spacers b/c I wasn't wandering.

So anyway as I was saying on Wednesday I was at the Pavilion riding the immediate trails around (which includes the Coil) when I noticed that right behind the Pavilion there was an entrance to the trails and I decided to ride that trail down & it lead out to the main trail. However somewhere during this ride I approached a slight downhill. I got in the downhill stance: arms bent, butt over the back of the seat... and went down the hill... during this time I heard a slight pop feeling & felt my body shift. However I felt no pain/

Well I didn't say anything b/c I thought I sounded crazy (still do a bit) but the next day the intense pain was gone. I was still in pain... but not like before where I couldn't move my arms back... that is when I thought back to the day at the hospital & tried to remember the XRAYS that they took... I couldn't remember them taking any from the rear. On Thursday I told Tom what I thought & he actually believed me. Later that night he rubbed my back/shoulder area the same spot that has been hurting me so badly before and the bump that had lived there for almost two weeks was gone. On Tuesday it was there.

This made me feel like I wasn't going crazy that maybe I was sane (well you know in a way) so I looked up misaligned shoulders on the internet...only to find no results. Then I looked up dislocated shoulders & I found that there is a very small dislocation (like 3%) that happens in the rear shoulder, that is often misdiagnosed b/c both shoulder look exactly the same... further more the dislocation usually happens when people are taking a seizure but is known to happen if someone falls w/ their hand outstretched (hello like on a grip). It went on to say that the way to pop the shoulder back in place is to hold the arms in a 90 degree angle with just so much weight going on the shoulder at one time.

Well after I found this I felt more able to factually say that i dislocated my shoulder. I didn't take any pain pills at all... and I know that the pain that I felt on Wednesday during my run it was horrible & extremely intense (I was almost in tears from running) today I did my first ride on the trails on my new bike & I felt good. My shoulder is still sore but more like a recovery pain that an OH Sh*t something is really F*UP pain.

So I guess while Mountain Biking may have contribute to causing the "pain" it also healed the "pain"... and believe me I do not make this conclusion quckly or irrationally but rather on the facts & what I experienced.

So in the end what I am really saying is Get Out & Ride!