[Closed] Shoulder injury recovery...

I'd get a formal diagnosis and exercises for gradual increase in stretch/strength.

I managed to do a rotator cuff tear about 18 months ago.

Initially I was told to allow 3 months for 80% recovery (which seems to be a ball park for most soft tissue injuries, ime) but to allow a year for full strength and movement to return.

I ended up with a frozen shoulder on the injured side which resulted in manipulation under a general anesthetic and steroid injections.

I'm still at the 80% stage now, tbh, and not sure I'll get full movement or strength back on that side.

I've been in a similar position to you twice following dislocation of left shoulder skiing and right shoulder kayaking. In both instances I suffered frozen shoulders, couldn't lift below shoulder height.

Both times I had physio but worked really hard in my own time to increase mobility and strengthen the shoulder. My last physio recommended lying on my back and putting arms out in a crucifix position, palms upwards. Then arc arms along the ground into a diving position. You will find your arm will begin to rise off the ground where the mobility is restricted - at this point I then did stretching exercises until I could get my arm flat on the ground again.

I also used theraband in various positions to rebuild muscle strength in various directions, although this was specific for rolling a kayak.

Recovery has been pretty much 100% although from time to time I go back to the exercises for mobility.

I have had two quite serious shoulder injuries which have both recovered well. However, the second one took nearly a year to recover because I was initially too worried about getting back to strength and I didn't give it the proper healing time. Made it considerably worse and then it took a long time to fix.

Back to full strength now but it took a lot of effort to undo the extra damage I had created through my impatience.

Cheers guys. Daft question maybe, but where is the best place to go for a proper diagnosis?

Doctor may refer you to a specialist but will take time. Could go to a private physio and see what they say.

It's a tricky business. Have a look:

(Best served with fava beans and a nice Chianti.)

Dislocated my shoulder and tore three out of the four tendons on my rotator cuff last year entering the water badly from a high dive.
As I run a bike repair shop single handed I had no choice but to go straight back to work and the consultant I saw credited the large amounts of physical work with the good recovery I made. Keeping mobile with light to moderate loads seemed to be the way.
However, every injury is different so get a professional opinion as to what you should and shouldn't be doing.

The worst part of the injury was the two months of poor or non-existent sleep from the discomfort when laying down.

I went to a GP when my shoulder pain started - he said nowt helpful, but at least it got a time = 0 point on record. I then paid for a few private physio sessions which were good in terms of understanding the condition, but unfortunately the exercises didn't help alleviate it. Back to the GP then and with a record of physio I've been sent to the local NHS orthopedic group - triaged as a frozen shoulder and referred to the consultant for next steps. I'd guess this is a standard route.

It is a common condition so there is a lot on youtube on stretching and strengthening which is pretty solid stuff - very similar to what physios told me. I'm regretting not taking the stretching more seriously early doors - I concentrated on the theraband stuff which I can still do OK now despite the shoulder being in a bad way. Some stretches are completely impossible now, though, and I could do them when I first saw the physio.

Had 2 very similar crashes in same day on holiday onto my left shoulder. Sports massage loosened it up for me. Bit stiff still if in same position for a time as in asleep or couch. Keep stretching and rotating seems to be doing it for me but slowly slowly.

From what I've read and what my consultant said about Frozen Shoulders - they're fairly random in terms of when they occur (with or without an injury) and that stretching is unlikely to sort them out (but worth a try).

I agree on the sleep thing though - there's no comfortable position to rest in.

I asked at the gym and there's a private physio/osteo there who specialises in sport's injuries and is also a personal trainer, so I'm going to book a session with him to diagnose what's what and get an exercise/rehab plan.

It can't be that bad as it's not affecting my sleep and I usually sleep on my side.

Go and get it checked out.
Don't wait or get fobbed off by your doctor.

I did something similar around 3 years ago (Sept 2013) - thought I should just MTFU and get on with it. Was still painful a few weeks later and went to see the Doc who said it was badly bruised and would take another few weeks to heal.

I got to Christmas and was in agony - went back to Doc who referred me to the Othopedic Triage unit - took 3 months for the appointment to come through. Had 6 weeks of physio which provided a slight improvement. Another 3 months later I was back at the Triage having a cortisone injection in my shoulder - all hunky dory for 6 months.

Woke up one morning in agony again - guess the injection had worn off - back to the Doc and waiting another 2 months to go back to Triage. Was offered more physio and another injection.

At this point I was about ready to smack the Doctor - I told them in no uncertain terms I wanted to see a specialist. In the previous 18 months I hadn't had an xray or a scan and I was now convinced something wasn't right (I'm a bit slow to catch on...).

8 weeks later I got an appointment with the Consultant shoulder specialist - who is a brilliant well regarded Orthopedic surgeon.

He sent me off for an xray (he was surprised I hadn't had one too...).

Turns out I'd impacted my AC joint and with enough force for the bones to slide over each other and basically rough the ends up, oh and damaged a few other bits in the process.

The conversation turned to surgery - which he was basically going to cut 1/2 inch of my collar bone off and clean out the joint. Recovery time could be between 6 - 12 months.

Before this though I needed intense physio to get my should lined up properly as my shoulder blade was 'winging' and impinging the rotator joint and I was about a week away from a frozen shoulder.

I also had an ultra sound to check all the tendons were OK.

Before kicking off the 12 weeks of weekly physio I had 2 cortisone injections which hurt like hell (couldn't lift my arm for 2 days) to alleviate the pain an swelling to help with the physio.

After the physio I went back to see Consultant and he was pretty pleased with the results but wanted to keep going with the physio and delayed surgery.

So another 3 months of physio ensued and another trip to the consultant.

He's now delayed surgery indefinitely as the physio has realigned my shoulder correctly and opened up the AC joint to relieve the pressure on the meniscus.

It took me nearly 2 years to get sorted.

Don't mess around go and get it checked.

As everyone's said go get it checked out. I'm just heading in for a session with the phsyio having thankfully broken my arm. Thankfully broken because the other option was rotator cuff tear and surgery.

Your gp might not take it seriously enough and a and e may not puck it up (I needed an MRI) so:
Physios are ace because they know body mechanics, mine wrote me a note to take to my gp who have me an urgent referral to the consultant.

However, most people don't get shoulder injuries seen to quickly enough. Do get it seen to!

Thread update. After an x-ray suggested that I had slightly separated my AC joint again (or that it didn't ever heal properly last time) the physio gave me some stretches and exercises to do which seemed to help free my arm up a little (I could raise it to maybe 110 degrees rather than 90) but recovery seemed to grind to a halt. Last week I was at the gym, doing some exercises that I had previously been able to do fine and I got a massive spasm in my shoulder which shot up into my neck and around to a temple giving me a massive headache which made me want to throw up.

I stretched it out and it subsided fairly quickly but the same thing happened again the next day in a spin-class so I decided to try something else and visited an osteopath that a mate of mine has seen before and spoke highly of. Within 5 minutes of him having a look he told me that my shoulder was fine and that my C5 and C6 vertebrae were knocked out of alignment due to lateral whiplash caused by landing on my shoulder. The nerves to the shoulder muscles run through here and if trapped can prevent the muscles getting the signals they need to move properly.

He did some very gentle manipulations (which did some weird things like making my fingers tingle and my arm move on its own, not to mention seeing some strange colours/shapes moving while I had my eyes closed!) and while its by no means fixed, my arm moves much more freely today and it's the first time I've woken up without a very stiff shoulder in weeks.

He told me to do zero exercise until I see him again next week, not even cycling slowly to the station, so I'll see how I get on and report back.