Muscle strain - convince me a doctor can help

Triathlon Forum
1

I did something with my back/shoulder muscles. I can’t tell which for sure, it may be teras major/minor or rhomboid. Certain sitting postions, like in my chair typing, are painful, as is jostling it like when running or biking outdoors. Swimming doesn’t seem to be too bad as long as I don’t go hard. Certain pilates moves were killing it…so I didn’t do them. Not sure how exactly it developed.

At first I though it was just tight, but it’s been going on about 3 weeks now and not getting much better. I haven’t let off activity too much but avoid anything definitely painful.

I get these types of things from time to time. Anytime I have visited a doctor for something like this it seems to be a collosal waste of time and money. They typically tell me what I already know…I stressed a muscle or tendon and need to avoid activity that further stresses it until it heals…and take pain medication…and maybe heat it and ice it.

I really can’t see any other result coming from a visit to doc, so why bother? But on the other hand, it seems like when you have a physical problem for 3 weeks you should see a doctor about it. I have been told in the past that my deeply held belief that I know everything about everything may be in error, so possibly I am not a good judge of the doctor’s abilities relative to my own.

Any thoughts? TIA.

2

Doctor won’t help. Physical Therapist could help. A good PT can give you specific motions (exercises or stretches) that may help with the problem. For insurance purposes you sometimes need to visit your Doc for a referal to a PT, so I guess your Doctor could be helpful in that respect.

3

Dan

I am 4 weeks into a very similar injury. I have seen the doctor twice. All I got was some pain killers and muscle relaxers. Neither helped much. That was about it.

Mike

4

Doctor can only help if it needs stitching up, which you can’t know without an MRI

With these types of injuries I have been learning, I think, I that resting them for three weeks, then progressively excersizing them harder and harder tends to do the trick. Let the tear heal, then break up the scar tissue until it aligns properly