Electricians and Tendinitis

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AE-29

Member
Location
Florida
Does anyone out there have severe shoulder pain? I do and I'm guessing I'm not alone. After years of doing overhead work the pain just got worse. Now this pain threatens my career as an electrician. My wife even said maybe it's time I change my line of work. Changing careers at this point in life, stop working at what I enjoy and am good at is not acceptable. I just wish I had known early on about the possibility. I was more concerned about getting zapped or falling from always being on a ladder. As Electricians we spend many hours working with our hands above our heads and not aware of this danger. Hey, just thought i'd put it out there for anyone who didn't know.Tendinitis is painful and debilitating.
 
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pismo

Banned
Location
Pismo Beach
i had simular pain in my shoulders when raising my arms. I got steroid shots and that helped immediately but the pain would return in about 4 or 5 months. My doctor sent me to a shoulder class and they taught me how to stretch and excersise them and I haven't had the pain since. I stretch them 4 to 6 times a day.
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
pismo said:
i had simular pain in my shoulders when raising my arms. I got steroid shots and that helped immediately but the pain would return in about 4 or 5 months. My doctor sent me to a shoulder class and they taught me how to stretch and excersise them and I haven't had the pain since. I stretch them 4 to 6 times a day.


I finally had to have a rotator repaired. Most painful surgery I have had to recover from but everything works fine now...at least that shoulder.

Try all the alternatives first but when you can't poor the morning coffee it is time for surgery.
 

hillbilly

Senior Member
I have the same problem.

Another piece of advice for the younger guys (it will help us older guys too) is to make a habit of using your hand tools for everything that you can, instead of your fingers.
I've always made my living using my hands. In the past couple of months, I've developed arthritis in my right middle finger, the one I absolutely use the most.

I wish........that instead of using my hands for all of those years to bend wire and tighten wire nuts and everything else you do with your hands, that I had trained myself earlier to use my hand tools (wherever possible) to perform these tasks.

When you're young and have strong, flexible fingers, you use them for just about anything that you can bend or tighten with them, without thinking. If you train yourself (by habit) to use tools for these jobs, you won't end up like a lot of older electricians (me included), with clumsy fingers and in pain with their fingers (and hands).
I can see myself getting out of doing any new construction in a couple of years and concentrate on service only.
Trimming out a new house is getting too hard on my fingers (and arms and shoulders).
Just some advice from one who has been there...done that.
steve
 

muskiedog

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
I have had pain for over two years in my left shoulder. What finally did me in was rebuilding my elevated deck.I have had a few shots put that only last for awhile. They say it isn't the rotator cuff but to keep doing low impact exercises (isometrics). It is slowly getting better. The shoulder has a lot of moving parts to screw up. Doctor says give it another year at least to get to a point it doesn't hurt. Probably drilled too many ice fishing holes with out the power auger.
 

tallgirl

Senior Member
Location
Great White North
Occupation
Controls Systems firmware engineer
Another tidbit of advice is to be sure you are WARM and stay WARM. I used to treat cold weather like no big thing, joking that I was cold blooded because I was born in the dead of winter in South Jersey. Now I'm 40-mumble and have arthritis in both hands, most likely from too many years of not wearing gloves to keep my hands warm.

The advice to stretch before working doesn't hurt either. The videos some of y'all might have seen of Asian factory workers doing Tai Chi or other forms of stretching before work might seem a bit strange, but a good 10 minute stretching warmup before physical labor works wonders for the muscles and joints. Never, ever work with cold tendons or joints.
 

dlhoule

Senior Member
Location
Michigan
Wow, I hope I get live long enough to get old and decrepid.

I have had epiderals in my back and rotator cuff surgery. I have now got back most of the motion in my shoulder and maybe 15% of the strength. It seems to be a slow process to get back to 100%.

Rotator cuff was not a result of work. I did it playing basketball with the grandkids and their parents.

You'd think they would go easy on someone old enough to be their grandparent.;)
 

aja21

Member
Location
Nebraska
Not only shouler pain but i've had carpal tunnel release in both wrists, continual lower back problems, tennis elbow(by product of holding the wires while wire nutting them, and tendonitits/bursitis in the knees.
Problem is this is still the best money my uneducated self can make.
Wow, what a great first post. HI y'all.
And yes pismo the N does stand for nowleje.
 

Luketrician

Senior Member
Location
West Pawtucket
First off, I hope you are able to find some relief and treatment so you don't have to quit the business AE. Just try to remain positive, whatever the outcome. While we are on the subject, I am 28, but am already wishing that I would have taken better care of myself already. Nothing debilitating yet,(knock on wood) but for example picking up a 2 1/2" 8' long piece of solid steel that we used for an axel, and carrying it up a flight of steps was a BAD idea, along with stalks of 5" ridgid.

Also, are any of you all familiar with wire nut "twisters" made for battery drills. Really saves the fingers and thumbs when having to do a high volume of taps and such. I have a couple different ones from ideal and 3M. I value them almost as much as my 'no dog'.
 

Oakey

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
LOL we are such a bunch of old geezers(46 here)..But yes I had rotator cuff surgery on one side (after steroid shots) and carpel tunnel operation on my right wrist. If I could afford it I'd get the left one done....Add the back disc in there too and all were work related.
One thing I've learned is dont cheap out and use semi-dull wood bits, buy a new one it really helps with the drilling on a large house. Go one more step up the ladder and watch the hole hog after a while due to weight.
And one more thing...If the doctor wants to inject the steroid into your finger joint run out of the room, it's over the edge painful.
 

AE-29

Member
Location
Florida
It is some business we do. I once read that being an Electrician was the #3 most dangerous profession in the world aside from combat war vets. Alaskan crab fishing #1. There are stats on how many electricians were killed each year but I don't know it. I do know we pay a heavy price for this industry. Thank you for the response...
 

hillbilly

Senior Member
Spent all day yesterday making up receptacles.
This morning my right middle finger was locked in the 90 degree posistion, couldn't straighten it out. I had to stretch it with the other hand to get the joint to un-lock.
It's h*** to get old.
Gotta "get er done".
steve

"I felt bad because I didn't have any shoes....until I met a man that didn't have any feet".
 
Using wago's (stab-type wire connectors) instead of wire nuts helps the fingers and hand problems.

I too have had shoulder problems. They call it shoulder impingement syndrome. Too many years working over the top of your head. Using a tall enough ladder so you're not working above shoulder height will help, but you usually can't do that.

My shoulder problems got much worse when some idiot left a 277v wire open in a box. I fried for about ten seconds (locked in with the other hand on a conduit) then my apprentice knocked my ladder out from under me. He saved my life (literally), but my biceps tendon got ripped away from my shoulder when I hit the floor from 5' up.

The surgery to re-attach it went well, but I notice I can't throw anythng anymore, because my aim is terrible. It seems the muscles don't work the same way.
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
My pain got so bad that just the weight of my arm hanging from my shoulder hurt. I've had six shots in it and it's better, but for years the pain was almost unbearable and anything short of the strongest prescription pills did nothing to dull it either.

Since I coach a Little League team too, it's a good thing that I have understanding coaches and I never have to pitch batting practice. I did it one day and messed my arm up for two weeks.

The hands are another thing as well as the back (but I threw out my back when I was 17 and wasn't even in the trades yet). My wife always could tell when I'd been setting finish, I would come home all hunched over and my hands I couldn't hardly hold a fork to eat dinner because my hands would be all cramped up.

Guess you can't ride motorcycles, ride bulls, try stunt work, work and play hard all those years and not have to pay the price sooner or later.
 

shockare

Member
Location
New York
Sore Ouch

Sore Ouch

I myself have the same problems. Seems after 40 your body falls apart. LOL

But i found a short term help that will get you thru the day.
I Use a Tens Unit . It will "zap" that pain away all day.
Its about the size of a beeper, costs about 65 bucks,
I use it on my back too!

Unit made by Ultima
 

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
I had severe shoulder pain, it got so bad it interfered with my fly fishing and that was the final straw. Went to several specialist, basic answer was you are getting old, you need to learn to live with it till it gets bad enough for surgery, till then we can give you cortisone shots. Tried that WOW those puppies burned but did work for a while.


One day a customer told me her son was a chiropractor and being a mother she went on and on about the miracles he could work with the back and shoulders, I though OK VOO DOO, But I was willing to try this guy, what did I have to lose he did a weird type of chiropractic, sort of a cross of acupuncture and chiropractic. Additionally he taught me stretches for the back and shoulders. The chiropractic stuff reduced the pain almost immediately and the stretches did the rest, I stretch now and it is much better. I still wonder about the chiropractic stuff, but if it works!! And this guy did not want a regular monthly relationship, which I have heard is standard in that industry.
 

Bob NH

Senior Member
I'll bet that someone has done work on reducing repetitive stress injury among electricians. You might want to search for an occupational therapist. It is probably covered by health insurance.

The first step is probably to find tools and methods to avoid the problem. Have you tried the next higher stepladder?

Some of the guy that work at big companies may have access to information on the subject. They are always looking for ways to reduce Workmans Comp costs.
 
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