My first shoulder surgery was done for what we thought was a simple torn infraspinatus. When the surgeon got in there, he discovered that the infraspinatus tendon was fully ruptured and the biceps tendon was frayed beyond repair, so he just cut it before it had a chance to randomly rupture. Your tendinopathy may well be far worse than it shows on MRI, and maybe there's nothing you can do about the biceps tendon. As for the subscap, the best course of action will depend on just how bad it's damaged.

Any chance you have seen a MT or someone that does ART that can work on loosening the bicep muscles or subscap? Also worth releasing the antagonist muscles too. Just a thought. I dealt with Achilles for 2.5 years. MT and ART practioners really helped me.

So glad you are back to normal! I haven't tried ART yet. However, I just had my first session of SET (Structural Energetic Therapy) yesterday. Is that something similar to ART?

My symptoms were similar.
After a misdiagnosis of a rotator cuff tear and a recommendation for surgery, I was properly diagnosed with frozen shoulder. After a couple months PT I’m 90%.
You need the right PT, though.

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Dr Jay
http://www.Tri-Pod.net

That's great news! Where exactly was your pain? Did you have an MRI done?
Did you also do eccentric exercises?
What about ART and/or did you use a thera gun?

I had an MRI done. The first doc said it was the RC. I went to the Big City Doc who said it was a frozen shoulder. Not really doing eccentric exercises, no ART.

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Dr Jay
http://www.Tri-Pod.net

I am not familiar with that modality. Frozen shoulder, Check out James Waslaski(spelling). A good practioner can make a world of difference in a couple treatments. I had IT band very bad. I went to all the right people with all the right initials after names and nothing improved. Then I went and saw somebody that works with soft tissue and I was running within a week. That is just my story and anecdotal so not much to go on there.

sad to hear that. i did a post a few days ago about what i do for my shoulders.

something else you may want to check out is this - Shoulder Health (championsmojo.com) -

this seems quite alternative hippy dippy shit but kelly pp (whose website this is) is a stud masters swimmer and this has worked for her.

if you are interested in exploring it i can find a part of her podcast where she talks about how she implemented this protocol and talks about her shoulder.

fundamentally our shoulders are so busted up from all the swimming / sitting / hunching and are weak and unstable in all the wrong places - some people like monty swim with dinner plate paddles 5 days a week for 50 years and are all good. the rest of us have our battles.

https://castbox.fm/vd/513917854

Don’t have a time stamp for you but it’s in this interview Kelly does with thorpedo swim talk

DM me for the name of a physical therapist who works online with swimmers. I've worked with him and he's great

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Thanks. I just listened to the podcast. It's at about 20 minutes into it.

Wow! That sounds pretty bad. I sure hope you fully recovered from the surgery!
I had surgery for a torn labrum on the other shoulder about 20 years ago. However, all the surgeon could do was clean out all the scar tissue since so much time had passed since the climbing accident. So, the labrum itself never got fixed. The recovery took a long time (including a frozen shoulder resulting from too intense PT). But I've never had any problems thereafter.
The MRI of my currently injured shoulder doesn't suggest any tears, just tendinopathy.

I've had a frozen shoulder after RC surgery on my other shoulder. It was excrutiating, but deep tissue treatments 2-3 per week did the trick.
However, the pain I'm having on the other shoulder is different and I can move my arm above my head. It seems the majority of the pain is in the bicep tendon area, especially when rotating the arm across my body in the front.

I agree with you 100%. I guess I haven't found THE one yet. They are all good in their own rights. But the big question is WHAT is it that will give it relief and make it better?

That is a great suggestion. Thank you!! I listened to the podcast, checked out the website, watched her recommended video, and did a few reps of the hanging. When doing the latter, there is no pain in the shoulder, but quite a bit in the bicep tendon. I'll keep doing it for a few more days. Fingers crossed!

DM sent. :)

I had a similar issue last year with multiple big tears on my MRI (labrum and RC), and surgery was recommended. I wasn’t a candidate for surgery at that time for unrelated reasons, so in desperation I went to PT.

Three sessions of deep tissue massage and I went from 10/10 pain while swimming to zero. It felt like a miracle. I’d had frozen shoulder before and this felt the same right up until he thawed it out completely. I didn’t do any PT exercises either. It was all him.

It’s really hard to know with shoulders what’s actually causing pain.

Have you had your neck looked at and cleared as the source or contributor of your symptoms?

Additional comment - an EMG study might be useful to see if nerve damage is causing some of it. My current shoulder issues are a nerve problem

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Oh, wow! Do you have numbness in your shoulder?
What caused your issues?

I had an osteopath work on my neck twice while I was in Europe. What kind of health professional would you suggest I go see?

That's amazing! What makes my case a bit complicated is that the pain is coming from both the shoulder and bicep.

Dr. Tigerchik wrote:

no numbness. I wasn't making progress w some PT exercises so we did an MRI. My supraspinatus on the R side has totally atrophied but the infraspinatus is fine. The same nerve innervates those two muscles. There's no sign of a cyst or anything on the nerve, meaning there's nothing to do surgically (I think). There could have been a cyst that then dissolved. Probably some little nerve off the big one is causing the issues. But we have no idea what caused the nerve problem in the first place. I see a shoulder specialist on 10/16, maybe will get some answers.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Physical Therapist - Fairly routinely missed when focusing on just imaging and not correlating to a functional exam. Just a thought, if you have not had this looked at yet.