The Insurance Company Paid For Opioids, But Not Cold Therapy
As a lifelong racquet-sports fanatic, I've dealt with shoulder pain for decades, treating it with bags of frozen peas, physical therapy, cortisone shots and even experimental treatments like platelet-rich plasma. Eventually, however, the soreness prevented me from handling daily-living tasks like pulling a bottle of olive oil off the top shelf of my kitchen or reaching to the back seat of my car to grab my purse. Even low-impact activities such as swimming freestyle hurt a lot. Sleeping also got tougher. After an MRI showed two full-thickness rotator-cuff tears, I finally called a surgeon.
My tennis-team pals who'd survived the operation gave me valuable advice: sewing Velcro down the front of half a dozen T-shirts to avoid having to put them over my head; borrowing an electric recliner chair in which to sleep for the first six weeks; buying pump bottles of
