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Shoulder recovery
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Bike crash 8 months ago. Most of the damage was done to my right foot, back, and left shoulder. MRI showed partial tears to my labrum and 2-3 of the tendons in my rotator cuff. It feels a lot better than months ago, but still hurts and isn’t right. I swam 1000yd last week, hurt at first then was ok, but then my shoulders (especially left one) got really fatigued. First swim since August. Kind of expected after being out for so long, but over the next couple of days, my right side feels fine but left side still hurts. Sunday I did my first sprint tri since the crash. Swim was about what I expected. Fatigued, but kept it steady and wasn’t overly “painful” (650yd). I started out on the bike ok, but after about 5 min in aero, my left side from my elbow up to my shoulder was really bothering me. So I got out of aero, it just was too painful. I tried again after a while, but every time I was in aero for just a few minutes before my shoulder hurt too much.

Anyone with prior shoulder injuries like this? Does it eventually just go away? Are there strength exercises I should be doing to help? I did PT for several months just trying to get back to where i could use it “normally”. It still hurts doing day to day things, but it’s manageable. I was pretty disappointed to not be able to do 30min on the bike in aero because of shoulder pain.
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Re: Shoulder recovery [TJP_SBR] [ In reply to ]
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I had an MRI show a labrum tear and "massive" cartilage loss in my left should back in June. Many months of PT and rest (as in, no swimming) didn't help. Started hemp CBD and am amazed at how much the pain as gone away.
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Re: Shoulder recovery [TJP_SBR] [ In reply to ]
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TJP_SBR wrote:
Anyone with prior shoulder injuries like this? Does it eventually just go away?

Sorry, but rotator cuff tears don't heal on their own. The tears will need assistance in order to heal, such as prolotherapy, PRP injection, or bone marrow stem cell injection if you don't want to go the surgery route:

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29101774
* https://www.sciencedirect.com/...ii/S1877056817300452
* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC5582534/
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Re: Shoulder recovery [RichardL] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks, I’ll check these out. My understanding was the partial tears don’t “heal”, and surgery would be required to fix the tears. But successful PT would strengthen the area around the shoulder so other muscles would be “trained” to compensate for the lack of stability that the labrum/RT would normally provide. I pretty much have full range of motion back now. There are just a few movements that give me some discomfort. And, I’m learning, I get fatigued and feel pain on that side when it’s under strain for a while.
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Re: Shoulder recovery [TJP_SBR] [ In reply to ]
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For partial tears, in most cases, surgery is not required. Dextrose Prolotherapy will trigger the body's natural healing mechanism to heal the tears. The procedure itself is fairly affordable.
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Re: Shoulder recovery [TJP_SBR] [ In reply to ]
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I had three small tears in my rotator cuff

PRP and once per week PT for three months - I did swim for two months though I did turn up at masters with a pair of flippers and swam one arm drill effectively for an hour three times per week and kicked a fair bit

My PT treated my like he would a pitcher , or that’s what he told me
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