Originally Posted by Fixmeup11

I'm 30yrs old and for the last 11 yrs I have had chronic pain in my left shoulder. It sucks. The kicker is that NO ONE knows what it is or what is causing it. I have tried everything:chiropractor(who told me I had the back of an 80 yr old man when I was 19),many rounds of physical therapy, acupuncture, deep tissue massage. I have also had every test done twice! In 2004 and 2012: MRI, xrays, nerve tests. I have seen every specialist available to me as well. The last shoulder DR I saw was the first to actually give me a diagnosis. Chronic sub-scapula pain. Well DUH! I have huge knots that run all around my shoulder blade. My family physician who has been helping me by "shutting the pain up with medication" has given me many trigger point injections as well. They work for maybe 20 minutes if I'm lucky. Personally I think just stabbing a needle in the knots and wiggling it around would feel pretty good. Anyway, he stopped filling my pain medication in April because he said he thought I was making up the pain just to score drugs. I was completely shocked! Who the hell would spend thousands of dollars, concoct a chronic pain lie, and stick with it for over 10 yrs??? I'm not stupid, I understand that aside from the knots which can be felt, all my tests have come back showing absolutely nothing. I felt angry and betrayed. Et tu brute? He sent me to a pain guy and he gave me some news that never once even entered my mind. He told me I would have this pain the rest of my life. I cried. And cried. I have always had hope that it would be fixed eventually with new technology coming out every year. He said he wanted to do some trigger point injections w botox. As always, I'm down for whatever and will try absolutely anything. As soon as I got home I researched this concept. After hrs on the computer and reading the comments from people who have used it, I realized I was yet to read a single thing about botox being used in the shoulder. I stumbled on a website from a very accredited neurologist in new york who has written a few books and been practicing for 35 yrs. Very informative website. It was on this site that I read about botox trigger point injections and how the sucess rate is 60% and u need them every few months. Naturally my insurance doesn't cover this, big surprise, but if it was gonna work I will figure out a way to come up with the thousands of dollars this was going to cost. Then the good dr went on to say that in no way should these injections be used between the spine and shoulder blades!!! Which is exactly where I needed it! WTF?? I called this guys new york office (I live in kansas) to find out why. Its because it is incredibly risky area and you can easily lose complete use of your arm until the botox works its way out of your system which takes a few months. It is painful to administer and not even guaranteed to work at all. Not cool. I have a 2 yr old and caring for him requires both arms. I place neurologists higher on the food chain than pain guys. Especially those that are so brilliant and experienced at what they do that they have been published authors, twice! This completely made me disregard a pain guy from podunk kansas. I refuse to give up on finding something that works. Afterall, I will try anything. I will NOT let this pain control me for the rest of my life. I want a job, to contribute to society, and most importantly, get to a point of feeling good enough to take my son to the park. He is just 2 and asks me at least twice a day if mama feel better? Breaks my heart.