Talk to me about your shoulder woes, and what you did (if anything) to end them. I have the usual options for mine, stuff like PT and/or surgery. Before I go making any decisions, I’d like to hear how long it took for you to rehab and be back in the pool, etc. I see this season going down the drain (pun intended) if I opt for even an arthroscope…
Shattered it once, now it likes to pop out…my solution is to ignore it.
Right shoulder: Three problems, Plane crash in 1985 where shoulder was injured- no treatment received. 1995, T-boned by drunk driver in intersection while driving a truck. Shoulder re-injured. Past year- overuse injury from bad chair/mouse design- fixed.
My shoulder has been “therapized” in physical therapy but no surgery. As long as I remian active I am OK. It is nagging though. I am definately getting old.
right shoulder, chronic tendinosis/ rotator cuff issues. really got bad about 3 years ago (couldn;t swim at all). worked on the muscle imbalances I had, and started doing stability exercises for the shoulder. I also figured out what I was doing wrong in the water, adn fixed that. haven;t had too many problems since (knock on wood!).
kas
Banged right shoulder into a curb skateboarding when I was young. Played sports on it through high school. It was destroyed. Surgery was only option (or never swim, throw football, etc again). Now it works well enough, although I’m still a fugly looking swimmer, which isn’t all the shoulders fault I’m sure. It was a 5 hour surgery and the recovery took well over a year. Very miserable.
Left Shoulder. Slight rotator tear from diving off a cliff into a lake a few summers ago. I bothers me more than the right now, but something drastic would need to happen before I considered surgery as the doc’s say its stable. I stretch it out and take a few advil before I swim if necessary. Sometimes I’ll cut workouts short and add kick sets with fins. Hoping that once the swimming muscles build up a bit it will go away as it has in past (I never swim when not training for a specific triathlon). I have found those strechy bands are a good way to strengthen it also and should use more of those.
Good luck. I’m told recoverying from basic orthoscope isn’t too bad.
I’m headed for AC joint Resection in the morning. Can’t even do a pushup with bones rubbing and such. My doc said I can “probably” start running in a week or so. I’m in the middle of Boston Marathon training and figured missing a long run or two now is better than missing half of softball season and few Duathlons when the weather is warm. I have faith I’m making the right decision. Anyone else out there ever have an AC Joint Resection? Just wondering about the actual recovery time.
Impinged rotator cuff. Stems from a) geneticall small cavity for rotator cuff b) many hours “mousing” at so-so ergonomic set up c) swimming while pulling a buckey
I’ve improved my set up at work but it is still not perfect so if I spent a lot of time on Pro-E (CAD software) it tends to hurt. I’ve corrected a flaw in my stroke so swimming with a bucket isn’t as bad (plus I now listen to any pain in my shoulder). I did PT last year and continue to do my “little muscle strengthening” exercises ~twice a week. I find if I don’t do those the pain comes back.
I still have pain from time to time but it’s not a debilitating as before. I used to have to ice my sholder at work while I was was mousing and it would kill when I was on my aero bars.
I have pain in right shoulder, radiating into arm and hand. Had an MRI and they found a bulging disc in upper back. Went to physical therapy and they found problem in lower back, went back to get Xrays, found degenerative arthritis in lower back… went back to physical therapy to be discharged with the instructions to keep working on core exercises and stretching and that I had a thorasic outlet problem that would take a long time to heal.
Seeing chiropractor and got book on Trigger Point Therapy which teaches you self-massage to release problem area (scalenes) in shoulder. Basically I ran circles around each specialist, feeling like a whiner to get them to help me. Doing better now but not planning any early season races.
Relaxation and the hot tub are now part of my training program. It doesn’t help to be tense!
I wouldn’t do surgery (look up horror stories on internet) unless you have to. Good luck!
Prior to 12/02 I had impingenment issues with both shoulders that would result in bursitis during periods of heavy use or overhead lifting. Problems related to years of swim practice and use of paddles. 12/02 tore the left cuff real bad. I was carrying a christmas tree and heard it rip. Tried to ignore and work around but couldnt. 5/03 opted for orthoscope repair by a very skilled surgeon. That arm was dead for almost a month before PT started. Due to the severity of the tear the Dr. wanted to make sure that the repairs were healed before PT. Therapy lasted another 3 months. It was the best decision I could have made. Left shoulder now has nearly the same range of motion as it did presurgery but actually is less prone to the bursitis problems than my non repaired right shoulder.
Strongly recommend seeing a Ortho and getting MRI. Get at least 2 opinions before going under the knife. The 1st Dr. want to slice it wide open to do the repair. The one I selected was able to do it with a scope, thereby limiting the amount of scar tissue.
Damn, you guys are some banged up dudes. Plane crash? Yikes, I don’t think anyone can top that.
I don’t know how you possibly swim with these kinds of problems. And I’m babying mine from just minor pain (trying to keep it from becoming chronic and acute) from multiple problems (tendinosis, bursitis, cartilage tears, cyst, a-c arthritis).
Small tear in my right hamstring stopped me using my legs for about six weeks in the pool. Kept swimming arms only with a pullbuoy with a blues (varsity) swimmer. Got to 16km a week arms only and then started to get shoulder pain. Combination of muscle imbalance (pectorals pulling the shoulder slightly out of the socket / misaligning it) and lack of flexibility in my lats and back. I saw a sports physiotherapist for two months who worked on the stiffness in my joint and I was banned from swimming for six weeks. She gave me stretching and strengthening exercises I am supposed to do every day, probably manage to do it every other day, along with 5 minutes massage of the front of my shoulder under the shower everyday and after swimming (me alone not her). Net result is I no longer have any pain and can swim again. If I’m lazy with my stretching or strengthening work then it has a tendency to feel a bit stiff and tight in the joint but it’s quickly fixed. My freestyle stroke is still a bit strange on my left, injured side, with a rather flat and wide start to my stroke but I move along reasonably well and no worse than before the problems.
John