Well this is going to suck

cliffish

cliffish

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I have had some shoulder movement pain from running some baseball practices with my sons teams going back 9 years ago. In the ensuing years I have played Dek hockey 3 seasons a year, usual yard work and wrenching on the cars. In the last couple months it has gotten worse, keeping me up at nights, pain during the day etc...

So got an MRI and found I have several partial tears in the rotator cuff on the shoulder among other things. Surgeon calls and says "I can do surgery, but have to make it worse to get it better" or you can treat it like I did surgery and stop wrenching and put it in a sling for 6 weeks and calm down for 4-6 months....no reaching up with my dominant hand.

This sucks, either way I can't get under the lift and play for a long time, let alone what I am going to do with work!
 
My opinion is always to look for another way to heal it, and use surgery as a last resort (unless it's life or death). I'd talk to a physical therapist, deep tissue massage therapist, even an acupuncturist.

I tore my rotator cuff 10 years ago in an arm wrestling match (something I'll never do again). It was audible too!

I managed to find all the physical therapy procedures online and rehabbed it myself to better than knew.
 
The surgeon was talking me out of the surgery as he said he has to make is worse and cut it from the bone and then reattach it. He said rehab will not do anything until I rest it a long time first....he kept using car analogies, so I believe he really knew what I was doing most to aggravate the problem. He finally said at the end of the conversation "can you try and leave your vehicles alone for the next 4 - 6 months or surgery will force you to do that"
 
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cliffish said:
I have had some shoulder movement pain from running some baseball practices with my sons teams going back 9 years ago. In the ensuing years I have played Dek hockey 3 seasons a year, usual yard work and wrenching on the cars. In the last couple months it has gotten worse, keeping me up at nights, pain during the day etc...

So got an MRI and found I have several partial tears in the rotator cuff on the shoulder among other things. Surgeon calls and says "I can do surgery, but have to make it worse to get it better" or you can treat it like I did surgery and stop wrenching and put it in a sling for 6 weeks and calm down for 4-6 months....no reaching up with my dominant hand.

This sucks, either way I can't get under the lift and play for a long time, let alone what I am going to do with work!
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I'm sorry to hear about this. I'm one of those guys that ignores stuff (including the pain) until it's sometimes no longer "fixable". Not recommended, by any means. But it sounds like you're at a stage where something absolutely needs to be done. Tough choice as to which direction to go. I wish you the best, my friend.
 
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Dealing with pain is no joke, and it sounds like you’ve been fighting this for years. I’d take Chris’s advice and exhaust all options before therapy. That’s what I did and after 3 years of extensive physical therapy and other remedies I’m laying in bed recovering from back surgery. Good luck brother.
 
Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions.....It is not debilitating yet...but I also don't want to get there either. My thought process is I am 51, do I take care of it now or wait until I can't lift my arm and I am 70? In a way, I am thankful that this is my worst problem at this time, Lord knows there are many more out there with way worse on their plate!

Again thanks for the concern and any and all input.
 
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cliffish said:
Chris do have any links to what you did to rehab?
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It was so long ago I can't even remember. But I know I went to Google (since I didn't have health insurance at the time), and searched up, "rotator cuff rehab exercises" and found tons and tons of stuff. I did a lot of the exercises and got it back to where I have 100% range of motion with it. I figure if I'm going to go to a physical therapist and they are just going to show me exercise to do, I can find the same things on Google and YouTube and do it for free.
 
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I had shoulder surgery 4 yrs ago for a torn labrum from 15+ yrs of baseball. It didn’t fix mobility or strength. It used to hurt when it was relaxed just hanging. Now it hurts if I use it. I wouldn’t do it again. Thinking about becoming a lefty but it’s a difficult switch mentally.


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Yea I wouldn’t recommend surgery...yet. If you still have mobility your not to that stage yet. He’s a cutter..and sounds like an honest one if he is telling you himself other avenues to pursue. I partially tore my AC joint doing flat bench press about 11 mos ago now, and my GF is a physical therapist and demanded me to go see an orthopod. I do not like going to the MD and I am a nurse lol. So like chris said I googled stuff on my own, and changed up my diet too. My GF did some of her tricks too, and about a year later it’s good as new. Now will I ever do flat bench again?? Hell now I do incline, and I just won’t try and lift stupid heavy weight anymore. I’m getting a little older, and I just have to alter my training a bit. Having a mucked up shoulder is the worst tho. As for diet I switched to a keto diet, as carbs can actually initiate a response with inflammation making it worse...you need protein to heal the tissues and whatever else you may have torn. Anyway I’m not an MD yet lol...you’ll get all kinds of opinions. My discharge plan for you would be to take Advil every 4 hours daily X7 days, and ice 20 mins in and 20 mins off when it hurts. You have to quit wrenching for now. It will suck, but it’s amazing what the body can do with some rest. I’m a gym nut, and I couldn’t do any upper body training for a solid 7-8 mos and it was awful. You’ll get better ;)
 
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Starrs said:
Now will I ever do flat bench again?? Hell now I do incline, and I just won’t try and lift stupid heavy weight anymore. I’m getting a little older, and I just have to alter my training a bit.
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Not to derail this thread (or turn it into a bro fest), but I've been lifting weights very seriously for 15 years now. I used to train with a former IFBB bodybuilder, and one of the things he told me is that he never, ever, ever recommends flat bench. He only had me doing incline and decline bench. He said that flat bench was too much of a strain on the rotator cuffs, and in addition, he saw way more benefit in terms of muscle size and growth from incline and decline.

I haven't done a single flat bench for almost 6 years now, and the funny thing is, I'm actually in better shape now than I was then, so I really believe it! I also took his advice and stopped lifting insanely heavy like I used to. I lift much more modest amounts now and just go until complete failure (look up Dorian Yates style training if you want an idea of how I train). The lighter weight prevents injuries, but at the same time, it has me looking in better shape than I did even when I was lifting those insane amounts.

So it just goes to show, more isn't always better.

Anyhow, don't want to turn this into a weight lifting thread, so I'll let this one go back to the topic at hand, haha.
 
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Thx Starrs...I am anything but a gym nut....losing carbs would not not be bad as I am type II...and love NY Pizza! Yeah, I need to put it in a sling (I Guess no beach volleyball in St. Lucia in a couple weeks) although I don't think I can miss out on jet skis. At least alcohol is not on the off list...it is after all an all inclusive trip!:copas:
 
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Yeah, the surgery sucks! 6 weeks in a sling, then 6 months of very little use, then some use. A year or more to fully recover. I'm 12 weeks out of surgery now. Flipped an ATV and dislocated my shoulder and totally separated my tendons from the bones. I put the shoulder in place and then waited almost 2months to get checked, I'm slow, I know. By then they said the one tendon was 3 inches retracted and they had to stretch it and anchor to bone with what amounted to drywall anchors.

Don't do the surgery unless you have to. It's a slow recovery and somewhat painful if you're an active person. I had to, I literally couldn't raise my arm. I asked to put it off until fall and they said it would atrophy so bad they wouldn't be able to fix it, can't sew into fatty mass.

Good luck in what you decide to do.
 
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cliffish said:
Thx Starrs...I am anything but a gym nut....losing carbs would not not be bad as I am type II...and love NY Pizza! Yeah, I need to put it in a sling (I Guess no beach volleyball in St. Lucia in a couple weeks) although I don't think I can miss out on jet skis. At least alcohol is not on the off list...it is after all an all inclusive trip!:copas:
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Oh lord you have DM too? You can’t get a break haha. Yea carbs and alcohol are your enemies.
 
Squatch said:
Didn't you say something like this once before in a different thread? I swear I've heard it before. Let's see...what was it, again? Oh, yeah! "Less is more"!!! :risas3:

Sorry, Brother! Couldn't resist! :D
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Oh, I thought you were going to mention my attempt to derail this thread... in which case I was going to say, I learned from the best! :risas3:

I couldn’t resist either!
 
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X2 to what @Starrs said, thoroughly good advice, worth reading 2-3x’s. I wish you the best. Surgery is a blessing when it can solve a problem, but if the problem is not quite there yet, and you have time to correct it, all the better.

I know what you mean by saying you don’t want to have to recover from something like this at 70, but you’re only 51 now, and if in 10 years you had to have the surgery, I think you’d be in good enough shape to recover quickly at that age.
 
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I have experience here...i got checked in hockey and had a class 3 separation in my shoulder. Could not lift my arm. Went to the ER, they said no problem. They were idiots. Later (1-2 mos), I went to my PCP, and asked why my collar bone was sticking up. He said basically the same thing... "what is done, is done. I can tear it apart to fix it, or you can immobilize it."
I was in college and didn't need surgery... so I chose to immobilize. When I was home for the summer, I did 3 mos physical therapy. It sucked to not use it (it was my dominate arm too). Now, 20 years later, I'm still in great shape. I occasionally get some pain, but I really have to be stressing it.
Good luck man.
 
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I can say from personal experience that acupuncture is really awesome for me. My VA offers Battle Field Acupuncture along with dry needling/acupuncture. I always attempt these procedures first if it's feasible. Most times (75%+), these procedures are effective for me. But I was extremely sceptical and refused it for a long time. I'm with everyone who says to try to exhaust all other avenues before surgery, but I'm also not the one in pain.
Good luck and feel better soon!
 
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