Thoughts on shoulder?

My shoulder has been bothering me for a couple months now. It has a warm burning feeling some of the time, I cant sleep on it that well without it bothering me. In april I had a slow lowside on this side. A couple months later I just woke up and reached above my head to get some water and that seemed to really irritate it. I have been reading up on the shoulder alittle. It seems that my symptoms put me in the tendinitis area. I also paint cars so I am always using my arm/shoulder. I can paint with my other arm but not as well. So giving it a couple weeks rest is hard to do. Is there any one the has experienced this, if so what can I do? Exercise, stretch. Thanks for any help
Brandon

 

http://forums.13x.com/showthread.php?t=231109&highlight=rotator+cuff+surgery

 

I used to have arthritis in the shoulder.

My arthritis was two tendons rubbing over each other, kinda 'snapping' or clicking, irritating the hell out of each other.

Sucked to drive my car (racing bikes, I didn't notice any pain), and turn the car at speed and get these freaking twinges. Got real bad in my left shoulder, couldn't grip hard (clutch hand).

Losing a ton of weight fixed the right side (brake hand).

The left I fixed by a method I don't recommend: I highsided and blew both tendons out, a type-III A/C separation. No tendons to rub anymore.

Though, I suspect the weight loss would have helped there, too.

 

Check with someone in PT.They could give you a few exercises to help.

However..
Make sure you don't sleep with your arm up under your pillow. Try and keep it down by your side at night. This will allow the shoulder to rest and not be continually stretched overnight.

It was a nasty habit that was hard to over come for me. But my shoulder is better now.

 

I used to sleep with my arms above my head, I would wake up to both arms completely asleep. Odd feeling. Im hoping this is minor, I really dont want surgery. I dont think its that bad at all. I just dont want it to get worse, so I want to try preventitive stuff first. Thanks for the replys

 

I have a bad shoulder due to a 15 year old wakeboard injury. It randomly pulls out of socket and takes a while to work back into place. I lowsided last fall and tweaked it again.

I've never visited a doc about it. When it first happened, I looked up some rotator cuff rehab exercises and did them on a Bowflex. Seemed to rehab really well. I no longer have the Bowflex, so when it gets irritated now I do the same exercises with dumbbells.

Look up rotator cuff rehab and you'll find some good stuff. The exercises I found are basically 90 degree movements against resistance either sitting or laying face down or face up.

@ tawzx12r: That's an interesting tip. I'm gonna try it.

 

My shoulder did this to me following a low side, I had a shoulder stablilzation done, this was back in 2000, 3 screws put in to secure it, it clicks every time I lift my arm, but hasn't come out since and feels decent. Only occasionally gives me pain, some loss in range of motion, but nothing that affects me much.

 

Yeah - I pretty much have an extreme aversion to elective surgery. If I'm able to rehab/work through something, I will vs visiting a doctor.

Someday I might have to have something done, but if I'm able to rehab it to decent condition, I'll always take that option.

It really sucked to hear the 'craaack, ccrrrrunch' sound when it first let go... Wasn't too painful, but I was pretty much unable to use the arm until after a bit of the rehab work...

 

For me having it come out of socket every other week made it necessary and I am glad I did it. All it took was rotating my arm back or a sudden movement and mine was out and that was extremely painful.

 

I hear you. After my lowside it was popping out a lot. Painful and sucked. I did consider just getting it bolted together a few times. I guess I'm lucky to be able to rehab out of it. <crosses fingers>

 

i dislocated my shoulder completely in a bike accident a couple years ago. it took about 1 year to get back to about 90% and kinda stayed at that level which was acceptable to me (i never did any PT- just let it heal on its own, little stretching here and there). then one month ago i started working out in the gym. I do lots of stretching and shoulder exercises (shoulder press, dumbell raises, dumbell laterals, upright rows, etc..). I would estimate it's about 97% now. my range of motion is back 100%, only thing i don't have is the tightness that i used to- that may never come back- but that's ok. i think strengthening the shoulder muscles and all the muscles surrounding it helps.

i like the dumbell stuff for the shoulder exercises because it guarantees that i'm working each arm/shoulder independently. i do not want to create an imbalance so i let my "bad" shoulder catch up to my good one until i move on to more weight. that way my strength stays balanced. don't only focus on your bad side- bring them up together.

 

If nothing else get a gel ice pack (or a bag of frozen peas will work) and ice it down 2 or 3 times per day.

 

I think I'm going to exercise and hope it improves. Thanks

 

^ good plan :up: just don't push tooooo hard. you want to feel the burn, but you don't want to push it so far you have pain. there's a thin line between progress and shooting yourself in the foot. especially in the beginning- be really patient with yourself. if that fails you could look into proper PT and then go from there, but my suspicion is they'll have you do similar exercises to what i mentioned plus stretching. do dynamic (moving- think jumping jax) stretching before you workout and static (holding it in one place) stretching afterward.

 

Another thing to note, the rehab exercises I found and did used very low weight with very high reps, I mean like 5 pound dumbbells and what not.

 

I think I'm experiencing the same thing, ppl as I did usually jump to conclusions and think worse case scenario, the rotor cuff but the truth is it can be an irritated bicipital tendon.

As stated above, when irritated, it can rub or snap over the bone or another tendon (similar to plucking a guitar string) causing pain. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/96521-overview

What helped me was telling my Chiro about it, he began to treat it by hitting/massaging that area with some instrument with a warming lotion (i think) and it seemed to help. I didn't work out for a few weeks to give it time to heal, except for some well known rotor cuff exercises. I think these exercises with the treatment helped a lot. Just be careful, on which exercises you do.....the one that helped the most is where you attach a rubber band (or you can use a pulley system as long as it's set at waist level) to a door knob, stand sideways with your arm bent at 90*, this is done in both directions.

Good luck!

 

I've had a Shoulder Impingement problem for five years:

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00032

I couldn't sleep on my side or lift my arm above my head. Cortizone shots did wonders!

 

+1 !!!!!!!!! to each!!!!!!

Rehab, especially soft-tissue rehab, is INCREDIBLY sensitive. You absolutely cannot "work past the pain".. you will only do further irreparable damage. I tore a couple ligaments in my knee a few years ago and this was one of the most important points drilled into me by the orthopedic surgeons before I entered PT. Absolutely, positively, no matter what, if your therapist says NOT to do something, DO NOT EVER do it. You can get away with skipping some exercises they do give you.. but do not ever do something they tell you not to.


For your specific situation, go get an MRI. Talk to your insurance, fenagle what you have to in order to get the most possible coverage for it, but go get an MRI. It will tell you what, if anything, is wrong, and how to fix it. You definitely have a problem; the only question is what it is.

 

Yep.

I had the arthrogram MRI when my I tore my rotator cuff and labrum in 2007. It will confirm guesses.

 

i can't picture this. can you please clarify this because i'm curious to know what exercise you're talking about.