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Dr 8a

Re-occuring shoulder injury.

Hello, I would greatly appreciate advice regarding my recent and reoccurring shoulder injury. I have included quite a bit of information about my injury, but let me know if any other information would be helpful. Injury History: I am 26. In the past 6 years, there has been 4 occurrences of this injury, all times in the right shoulder. The first 3 times while climbing, and the most recent while wrestling. 1) About 5 years ago, while pulling down with a partially extend arm. I felt an uncomfortable sensation inside my shoulder (hard to describe), and then weakness in moving the arm. Followed minutes latter by soreness and lack of range of motion. 2) About a year later, almost identical situation. 3) Just over 4 months ago, about 4 years after the previous occurrence. Similar situation, while doing a horizontal campus move. Right arm more outstretched and not high above the head. Injury happened while shifting my weight to the right arm. 4) The last time while wrestling, 3 weeks ago. My right arm was outstretched on the ground while I was supporting the weight of the person I was wrestling. Symptoms: Pain isn't an issue because there really hasn't been very much. Little if any pain when the injury occurs, which I was told is probably due to adrenaline. Immediately afterwards my shoulder becomes very weak and difficult to move. A few minutes later there is some pain I think due to inflammation, and very restricted range of motion. Taking some Ibuprofen seems to take care of this, and after a couple of days there is no pain if I don't use my arm much, and little pain if I do. Range of motion is still restricted. The only pain I notice that doesn't feel like inflammation is under some circumstances there will be a quick sharp pain. If I cough or sneeze sometimes I will feel a sharp pain briefly while my shoulder muscles tense up quickly. In about a week, it starts to become difficult to put my arm in a position that causes pain, and range of motion is becoming closer to normal. At this point my only other indication of injury is occasional slight pain, and a lot of apprehension in doing quick or intense movements with my right arm. I can't tell if the apprehension is due more to instability in my shoulder, or fear of re-injury. Rehab: After two weeks I began physical therapy, doing range of motion and strength exercises. At this point I also began climbing again at the gym, climbing well below my level, and being very careful. A week later, about 3 weeks after the most recent injury I am starting to climb close to half my normal level (around v5/6C range). However, there will be many routes I wont feel comfortable doing. I tend to stay on the small holds, with small moves, and routes that have more difficult left hand moves. I will climb almost completely statically. If I can't do a move static, I wont do it at all. By doing this I feel like I can maintain control enough with my shoulder that I wont have re-injury. At this point in the past, I would slowly increase the difficultly over the next month or so until I am climbing just a couple grades below my normal level. Then approximately another month (about 3 months since the injury) until I feel 100% or close to it, and begin higher impact training, such as campusing. MRI Results: Scan was done almost two weeks after, and I received the discouraging results today. Caution: Report not yet finalized and possibly incomplete! PROCEDURE: MRI OF THE RIGHT SHOULDER WITHOUT CONTRAST TECHNIQUE: Multiplanar, multi-sequence images of the right shoulder were obtained. Exam performed at the UNI CVMS Clinic. INDICATIONS: Right shoulder pain FINDINGS: There is Hill-Sachs deformity with bone bruise of the superior posterior and medial aspect of the humeral head. There is anterior glenoid labral tear extending to the most anterior aspect of the superior glenoid labrum which could be related to SLAP II. There is also edema of the long head of the biceps tendon which could be partially torn. Edema is also noted involving the most superior aspect of the subscapularis adjacent to the tendon. Partial tear of the superior aspect of subscapularis at its insertion onto the humeral head is suspected. Thickening of the inferiorly glenohumeral ligament. AC joint is preserved. Type I acromion. Subscapularis, infraspinatus and teres minors appear intact. IMPRESSION: Anterior glenoid labral signal abnormality compatible with tear with possible SLAP II lesion of the anterior aspect of the superior glenoid labrum. There is suspicion for a tear of the long head of the biceps tendon. Biceps tendon however is in its biceps grove. Hill-Sachs deformity with edema of the humeral head. Partial tear superior aspect of the subscapularis. AC joint is preserved. No encroachment. Type I acromion. Biceps tendon is in its grove. Options: According to my orthopedic specialist, I have 3 options. 1) No surgery, and stay away from activities that could cause the injury. This is NOT an option. 2) No surgery, and take my chances. Probably just a matter of time until I before a relapse. Possibly making the shoulder worse and more prone to injury each time it happens. 3) Have surgery. No guarantee it wont happen again. Probably reduce the chances of re occurrence. He mentioned that my shoulders both feel a little loose (or something like this) which might make them more prone to this type of injury. He wasn't particularly confident in giving me advice due to lack of experience with the kind of stress that rock climbing has on the shouldering. I am sure if I mentioned what is involved in high impact actives like dynoing, and campus training, he would have been less than enthusiastic about me continuing to climb. This is why I am going to this forum for help, and also to get more opinions on how I should proceed. I have no intention of giving up climbing or backing off of difficult climbing. My advice so far points to surgery as a better option. However, timing is particularly bad right now since I am graduating from college and was planning to climb extensively during the next year before likely returning to school. I am considering the risks of having surgery or not, as well as the length of recovery time I can expect giving the two options. I would greatly appreciate any advice on these matters, as well as advice relating to rehabilitation and future injury prevention. Thanks again, Paul Nadler
Hi Paul This is a big one to tackle! First of all you most likely have too loose rotatorcuff function ( 5 five muscles that keep your upper arm in/on its socket) - they are most likely to weak and doesn't work in true syncrony. The best thing would be to learn rotator cuff training from a sports medicine specialized physiotherapist. The slap II /Bankhard lesion operated on with endoscopial method by a true specialist would proably give a much better chance of a continuing climbing future but there is a chance that a good rehab program as mentioned above and combined with general strengthening of shoulder and back muscles will also get you there Best of luck and Remember - most important - I can only make an educated guess and you should always consult a sport medicine specialised MD with experience of this kind of problems to avoid loosing valuable healing time and meassures Björn Björn
maybe this doesn't apply to you since you already have a detailed diagnosis of the injury. anyway, i had a friend of mine reporting very similar symptoms (especially the hard-to-describe pain inside the back parts of the shoulder spreading out into the arm, along with inflammation of tendons and in the joints). He consulted doctors who didn't find much other than symptoms, no definite diagnosis. A chiropractor then found out he had a muscular disbalance in his upper body due to quick progression. His back was way stronger than his front, which caused him to be in a bad posture constantly. That caused some nerves to get in the way of things (sry, can't remember details) and thus triggered various counter-reactions on the affected body parts. Kinda like a chain reaction. Strengthening his frontal body, pectoral muscles and abs helped a great deal. Again, i ido not know if that is of any help for you, but i thought i'd mention it since the symptoms overlap a lot here...