Injury Update...And a Cautionary Note

I ultimately decided not to get the MRI that I was scheduled for. It may turn out that this was a bad call, but even with insurance the MRI was going to cost me at least $700 out of pocket. So far I've spent around $1000 out of pocket chasing dead ends and the idea of shelling out more right now is just too painful.

Plus, Southeastern Sports Medicine pushed for the MRI way too quickly in my opinion. When I described my symptoms, like the knot that's been in my neck for a year now, the PA who was seeing me did not even feel my neck. She did a few range of motion and strength tests on the left arm, heard me say I'd had a torn labrum in 2003 on my right shoulder, and quickly decided that must be what's happened to the left. She never even asked, "Does this feel like the same injury you had in the right shoulder?" She spent all of 5 minutes with me. I couldn't believe that she didn't even poke around in the areas I was describing as the most painful. I don't know what anyone else's experience has been here, but I won't be going back again. They rushed me into the X-ray booth (more $) and too quickly scheduled the MRI. I got the feeling the place was just an insurance billing machine. They were moving dozens of people through very quickly--and most of them weren't sports injury patients at all (unless overweight geriatrics are suddenly playing rugby), so even their name is misleading. So that's my heads up to anyone considering them for sports injuries.

As for the injury, I'm hoping that laying off it all summer has helped. And the new mattress I got to finally replace my crappy old futon. Only time will tell if laying off it has helped. At least it didn't hurt after my last day of climbing at Granite City. I'm also hoping ASU has a staff PT in the Athletics department I can access. I'll keep ya'll posted.



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