Could Bursitis be killing your A-game?

Baseball season is about halfway done. Your slo-pitch league just held the all-star tournament, and all you got was sunburned and a few blisters. “Seems like I can’t play like I used to,” you keep telling yourself, “It just seems to hurt a lot more.

Bursitis vs Old Age

Part of that may be true; everyone gets older, slower and stiffer. But even though you can still clear the infield and hit pitches on the outside of the plate, do you seem to be doing it while wincing through pain? And, when you really think about it, are you just feeling it in your hips/knees/shoulders?

Now it’s all starting to unfold, isn’t it? Since opening day you’ve used the entire tube of Deep Heat and still haven’t felt any relief. You’ve actually considering stretching, cursing the years of stiffness you’ve accumulated.

But wait! Don’t go trying to touch your toes just yet. If toes were meant to be touched they’d be in our pockets. All that pain making you seriously consider switching to lawn bowling may not be natural old-age at all. It may be bursitis – an inflammation of your joints.

Found in and around your joints are small, fluid-filled sacs acting as cushions between moving bones and tendons. If this sac becomes inflamed, it could definitely be the cause of the joint pain you are experiencing.

Unfortunately, nothing can be confirmed without a trip to the doctor and a definitive diagnosis. In the meantime, you should probably take yourself out of the line-up for a few weeks. Be the team’s official beercan-opener-guy, and try to participate in low impact activities like walking through sports stores, swimming up to the pool bar, or playing baseball on Xbox.

To get you back to your prime (and hopefully the .245 hitting machine you once were), you’re going to have to rest a bit. Stretching a bit, and talking a good game wouldn’t hurt either. Give the other team a break for a while. Bench yourself and get checked by a doctor.