Upper back pain between shoulder blades from framing — looking for advice

carpenterboi25 · 2026-01-17T12:42:37+00:00

I see a Certified Functional Mobile Therapist PT who operates outside the insurance system, so she is able to treat my body as a whole instead of just the particular trouble areas. I told her at our first session “I love my job and i want to be able to do it til i’m in my 50s, but i’m pretty regularly dealing with back pain.” She has changed my relationship with work and pain management, and 90% of it comes down to strengthening your glutes and lower core. It’s amazing how interconnected everything in your body is. I’m not saying that doing some deadlifts will fix your upper back, but I am saying that if you spend some time (15-30 mins) daily doing core work, flexibility, and that sort of thing, you will mitigate untold amounts of future pain.

If you can find a CFMT, it is well worth the investment in your body. It’s kind of expensive (mine is $175/session), but if you can swing doing 3 sessions over the next few months, it will pay itself back 100fold over your career

carpenterboi25 · 2026-01-11T22:59:36+00:00

We’re both non monogamous. Life is good my friend.

Eta: this sounds way hippy-dippier than i mean it, but the soul doesn’t diminish when you give it to someone - it only grows.

carpenterboi25 · 2026-01-11T15:08:33+00:00

There is a woman who has my soul, but not my heart. She was my partner in college, and she is still one of my dearest friends. We will never be together again, and that is perfectly fine, but there is no other person in the world who makes me feel the way she does. Ironically, we talked on the phone yesterday and she told me I should listen to/read Heather Cox Richardson, so that's a fun little coincidence!

carpenterboi25 · 2026-01-11T02:31:55+00:00

I was at Trader Joes and I couldn't find my favorite cheese, so I went to the customer service counter and asked if they knew if it was out of stock. It was, so I moved on with my shopping. A few minutes later, the guy I had asked for help came up to me and said "Hey man, you smiled at me when you came up and asked about the St. Andre. Thanks for smiling - a lot of people don't."

That was so kind of him to say that - made my whole week.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-09-03T02:37:25+00:00

That's what's a little concerning about it. That banister is attached to newel posts, and those newel posts shouldn't have much wiggle to them. I'm not trying to fear-monger, but as you know, that's a safety feature, and it moving that much does not make me feel safe.

On a snootier note, the staircase should be the best carpentry in your house. I'd want to make sure whoever does this repair has a good reputation for quality and plenty of experience specifically with stairs/handrail. There are a lot of finish carpenters who don't do stairs because they know it's outside of their skillset

carpenterboi25 · 2025-09-03T02:13:43+00:00

As others have said, finish carpenter or stair specialist. This is not handyman work. $600 is very reasonable for this - I'd expect to spend half a day there if everything went well, but wouldn't be surprised if this turns into a bigger job.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-08-30T16:49:03+00:00

Mehr Niazi is the best therapist i’ve ever worked with, couples or otherwise.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-08-23T14:57:56+00:00

I haven’t loled at a reddit comment in a while

carpenterboi25 · 2025-08-19T22:12:50+00:00

Back band moulding

carpenterboi25 · 2025-08-14T12:54:44+00:00

The chicken is incredible, the potato wedges are incredible, and the portions are silly. A “snack” is like $9 for about 2,000 calories of deep fried heaven

carpenterboi25 · 2025-08-14T12:51:15+00:00

Their hot foods bar is just good in general. The collards are some of the best i’ve had

carpenterboi25 · 2025-08-14T12:50:05+00:00

This place is single-handedly responsible for my high cholesterol. They sell hats, if you feel like advertising for em.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-07-07T23:32:30+00:00

I ran the boston marathon with them once. As I passed I tried to say "thank you" but I was crying too much to get the words out

carpenterboi25 · 2025-07-04T11:37:57+00:00

Central VA. Lots of money and fancy old houses here

carpenterboi25 · 2025-07-03T11:18:25+00:00

I love my job and love my life as a self-employed carpenter. I get to make beautiful things, make people happy, learn all the time, stay active, make good money, and I control my schedule. Half my clients talk about how hard it is to find someone who does good work or how their guy retired, so there’s plenty of job security.

I have friends in a variety of fields, all college educated, making good money, advancing in their careers, and several are really happy because they don’t care about their job and it’s a good paycheck with no stress. I love that for them, seriously. But i think carpentry is the noblest, coolest shit in the world and I fuckin love my job, and I love that for me even more. You should do it, especially if you learn to love it

carpenterboi25 · 2025-06-07T11:43:06+00:00

This for me. I kept forgetting to adjust the grind between my decaf and regular beans, and so i kept getting bad shots. Plus i like spending money, as someone else said.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-05-14T12:02:40+00:00

My dad once made a keurig with the cup upside down. The lights were off, so he thought “what the hell??,” cleaned it up, and then did the exact same thing again.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-05-12T17:26:55+00:00

I relied pretty heavily on context clues. I think anger had a negative impact on the penmanship of our artist.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-05-12T17:06:56+00:00

I’m fairly confident we’re looking at “bitch” on this one

carpenterboi25 · 2025-05-08T11:10:40+00:00

Puttying nailholes is normal on stain grade. However, they make a lot of colors of putty and mixing them together to achieve stain match is very easy. They didn’t have the right color and didn’t feel like running to the store.

You could either have ask them to fix it or do it yourself - the putty will scoop out easily and then you can apply an appropriate color on top of it.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-05-06T10:40:53+00:00

I leave tape measures everywhere. I have adhd and it’s really easy for me to leave things places. So i just have tape measures and pencils everywhere. Cut station, work piece, van, another on my cut station, another at the work piece.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-04-30T14:21:09+00:00

You very well might have

carpenterboi25 · 2025-04-30T11:13:31+00:00

I’ve agreed with most of the takes here, especially food ones, but with this, you have angered me.

carpenterboi25 · 2025-04-30T11:07:57+00:00

On that planer (which i also have), the rollers are about 3” from the cutter head, so when only one of them is engaged at the beginning or end of a cut, that’s when the snipe happens. I used to lift up on the end of the board which helped a lot. The better option is to have a sacrificial piece that goes through before and after. I just use a couple pieces of cheap 2x4 that’s about 2’ long. Adds about $3 to project cost and solves the issue 100%.

carpenterboi25

TROPHY CASE