When age is catching up with you, all sorts of pain seems to find their way into my body, not sure if child birth was also a contributing factor. After my exercise regime came to a hiatus during my course of pregnancy, I started developing stiff shoulders. One day I just woke up with a pain along my right arm, not sure if it was my nerve, or tendon.
That pain was just there, sometimes causing some discomfort, sometimes weakening my arm strength. Overtime, that pain kind of got worse.
When I started the YTTC, each time after my practice, that pain seems to have gone off, I thought I had healed, but the following day, it slowly crawled back into my life :(….and one day, the pain actually worsen and got on to my rotator cuff.
One weekend, during one of the class, Master Paalu was jokingly mentioning that even a monkey can do Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana, that our arms are born longer than the circumference of our waistline, hence we all should be able to catch hold of our toe. Of course we all have our suspicions if this was even possible, even myself was suspecting as I had this stiff shoulder issue and that my arm is painful every time I tried twist to the back. One of our classmate requested for Master Paalu to perform this Asana on her to convince everyone, and so he did. Master Paalu showed us the correct method of twisting our arm to the back to catch hold of our toe, and indeed, I was able to do it.
The most amazing thing was……HEY! That dull pain on my arm and rotator cuff was gone! I was in awe and happily told everyone that the pain was gone after I did that correct twisting on my arm. Sadly, the pain….crawled back into my life once again after a few days, but this time, it was only on the rotator cuff, and wasn’t so painful as before.
I started twisting my arm every morning during my rejuvenation practice as it makes the pain go away and I was able to function with my arm without disruption to my activities, as well as researching into what could have happened to my arm and rotator cuff.
The most probable cause I found, is that I might be having Rotator Cuff Tendinitis. And how I developed this? I realised it was due to me sleeping on my right side every single night, and true enough, I really did wake up with a pain on my right arm every morning.
Although there isn’t much information online on how yoga can be used as a form of physiotherapy for Rotator Cuff Tendinitis, however I would experiment on it. So far, the pain I experience every day had seemingly decreased. What I hope for is I would be able to recover with the help of Yoga.
Lim Pik Wui, Tiffany
March 2018 200hrs Weekend YTTC
