I've just returned from a round trip drive to the East coast. Don't ask why, just know that the last time I did that journey, I was 19, and it's quite a different matter to sit in a car that long that far nearly 4 decades later.
We were equipped with snacks, books on tape, and my favorite pair of sunglasses. When I tried them on at the sporting goods store, I was impressed with their style and comfort. I wore them for six months before I noticed that they had skulls embossed on the ear pieces--perhaps some sort of extreme sports insignia? Actually my son brought the look to my attention.
Well I can live with the skull thing, but I discovered during hours of driving into the late afternoon Kansas sun, these shades simply don't fit. The beskulled left ear piece digs painfully into my very own skull just above and behind my ear. So what misery to pick--squinting into the sun (wrinkles! cataracts! an inability to see the road!) or incessant fiddling with the way glasses meet head?
On top of that, my left shoulder began hurting terribly. I'm picturing my aging, degenerating neck sinking into my torso, pinching a nerve on its way to the bucket seat, and I add massaging the shoulder to sunglass fussing to my general in-car fidgets. After ripping the stupid things off when the sun went behind a cloud, I discovered that my shoulder pain resolved within minutes.
I've always told my patients that muscle tension in the neck can easily cause a headache. Apparently pounding plastic into the temporalis muscle on the side of the head can reverse the pain flow down the neck to the shoulder.
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3 comments:
Ah, long car rides. My bum goes numb, I get out and exercise, feel great and it's numb again 10 minutes later!
Growing up, I went on tons and tons of long car rides. We were living in New York and there's a lot of history in that region.
I now hate long car rides.
The longest we ever drove with our own kids was Denver>Santa Fe.
I think we need a pic of the skull sunglasses! ;)
That's OK. I got my new glasses and a couple days later was getting concerned about a couple dark spots that were occurring in my peripheral vision. I almost set up a Dr. appointment. Then I figured out my new glasses had two medallions on the ear pieces - right where those blind spots were in my vision.
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