Shoulder Problems - Arthritis

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, I guess I’m no longer a young whipper-snapper anymore. My doctor confirmed for me today that my right shoulder does, indeed, have something wrong with it.

I have arthritis in that shoulder and there’s nothing much I can do for it. I’m 31 years old, and my shoulder is only going to go down hill from here.

Needless to say, this is bumming me out, especially since I have just recently (the last 36 weeks or so) gotten into lifting weights and running. Because of which, I’ve shed over 80lbs and put on some muscle.

The problem is that this shoulder issue impairs my ability to lift weights. Specifically shoulder presses and bench presses. I can still do those lifts, just not as heavy and I have to be extra careful with them. Actually, truth be told, I don’t know if I can do any overhead stuff, since I was ‘taking it easy’ on my shoulders for the past few weeks. I was hoping this was just an inflamed muscle, something that if I left it alone it would correct.

So with that long winded intro out of the way, I’m curious:

Other people with this issue, can you still have quality weight workouts and build mass in your chest/shoulders? What do you do when the pain gets bad - as in, do you just stop lifting for the rest of the day and take some aspirin (or do you stretch it out, ice it up, etc?).

2

Arthritis became a part of my life after an knee injury at age 13. Now that I’m in my 30s I feel it in one shoulder and my hands sometimes too. But I discovered something interesting this winter: after learning that studies have shown that people north of Boston don’t produce any vitamin D from sunlight between March and November, which accounts for the sky high SAD rates in the north, I began to take 3-4000 IU of vitamin D every day. And not only did my mental health fare better than most winters, the shoulder pain that’s always the worst during the winter failed to show up at all this year. If you google arthritis + vitamin D it looks like this may not have been a coincidence. A huge precentage of people are vitamin D deficient, so even if getting more doesn’t help your shoulder, it’s bound to do you good anyway.