Injured shoulder
So....
Over the weekend I did the LA -Barstow-Vegas dualsport ride, riding dirt roads and trails from Palmdale, CA to Barstow, CA the first day, then Barstow to Vegas the second day. Everthing was clicking well until about 2/3rds of the way through Day 2 when I "swapped out" on the bike and went down pretty hard on my right side. No broken bones (at least it doesn't feel like it), was able to get back on the bike but chose to take pavement to Vegas vs continuing on to some very technical riding and getting into much more serious trouble.
Anyway, my right shoulder seems to be getting better very quickly, but I wanted to check with you guys and gals just to make sure, tell me if I need to see a doc, etc:
- Feels like I really strained the muscles, tendons, ligaments around the shoulder.
- I can manipulate the shoulder in such a manner that I can sorta feel a pop...and that fookin' hurts.
- It's getting better very quickly but the pain also comes and goes a bit.
I should also mention that we have $$$$$ invested in a snowboarding trip to Big Sky, MT with my sister and her family Dec 20-26 so I need to get this mostly healed by then 
.
What say you? Any advice? What flavor doc would I try to see, if I wanted to get a miracle shot or whatever to fix it? Sorry, I have very little experience with seeing doctors, etc. Thanks!
Comments
Shoulders are tricky. I would go to your GP and get a referral for PT. If you are allowed to then go straight to an orthopeadic MD. Is likely not broken BUT a quick x-Ray can rule that out.
Soft tissue, joint trauma in shoulder girdle/trunk/neck leads to muscle guarding and inflammation. All that needs to be resolved with time, ice, gentle to more agressive soft tissue release , joint mobs and then stretching. To go straight to stretching will likely cause your pop thing to occur as the head of the humerus and other bones are out of alignment from the muscle guarding.
If you know a good muscle release, sports person go to them asap
Carrie
Best of luck to you man.
Assuming nothing is actually torn, I'd look at ART or a good chiropractor. I took a bad fall last year from my bike and broke my arm at the elbow. My ortho and PT worked on that, but my shoulder/neck has a lot of soft tissue problems after the fact. My chiropractor does an acupuncture-like treatment with electrical stimulation (called Accu-stim) that healed all of the soft tissue injuries up pronto. He uses it in conjunction with adjustments and massage and it's the bomb.
rich,
rest it, ice it, alleve.
sports med or ortho. sports med docs are often family docs as well, so no need to get a referral from them.
make sure you have no tingling in hands or arm or weak grip, shoulder blade sticking up or other deformities, etc., which would indicate nerve issues = MRI sooner than later.
otherwise, waiting a few days to see how it develops is ok. wouldn't recommend injections of anykind nor manipulations of any kind until you know more.
g
sorry to hear this. wouldn't mess around with shoulders, too many bad things can go wrong here. would seek out someone who knows a good bit about shoulder rather than just your GP or a doc in a box. Ortho, sports med, chiro/ART even. good luck
I do have some tingling in my right hand...so I guess that's a bad thing?
Want to have lunch some time this week and check me out :-)
rich,
not necessarily a bad thing, but means you should be at least preliminarliy examined. by tomorrow, i'll have a better idea of my schedule for the rest of the week, but an exam before the weekend should work. i'll email you.
g
The tingling comes and goes. In general, the shoulder feels like it's a little displaced.
hopefully not, but the stuff in the shoulder, once damaged, will continue to aggravate until fixed. especially when you start swimming again. thank God you got technique down to save you.
Do consider this tho, and I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it....sometimes tingling or weakness in the arm & hand that occurs after a traumatic fall like you had (and, obviously, I didn't see what happened) can be nerve damage. Could be from tweaking the neck. If there's any swelling putting pressure on the nerves, you'll get this kind of tingling.
often rest is all that is needed, sometimes something more aggressive.
I'm conservative. Would always try to rest it and rehab it as opposed to jumping into surgery for a quick fix.
but that's just my opinion based on working in the OR for the last 15 years.
I have an appointment today at 2:30 and will let everyone know what the verdict is.
FYI, I've had chronic shoulder pain in both shoulders, but more my right (same as this one) since I was 15 from some very, very, very high volume swimming back in the day. Gotta love the training methods of the 80's. So right now it feels like _that_, at it's worse, plus the strange feeling of it being not quite right in the socket.
At the end of the day, this could the event that finally starts to fix an issue I've been dealing with for 28yrs...yikes!
what kind of doc do you have an appt with? hopefully the tingling is from inflammation possibly compressing a nreve. think positive but get it checked out!
please keep us posted!
Saw the doc yesterday. He said it could be a stress fracture caused by the impact, a torn labrum, torn rotator cuff, or stress/pulled/strain labrum/rotator cuff. Can't make a diagnosis without a super duper MRI that I can't get into until next Thursday and then he's not available to see me until the following Monday, Dec 12. Uggg.
He said at my age and activity level, if a tear, he would recommend surgery. I guess bottomline is I won't know anything for another week and a half.
Benefit: we had a BIG windstorm last night that dumped a lot of leaves and sticks in the yard. The injury gets me a pass on cleaning up
Sorry to hear that Rich.
Misery loves company? Currently waiting for MRI in my shoulder as well due to an old (five years ago?) hockey injury. It has always been cranky but got super pissed off when I started working with a new coach 1-1 on my swim technique a few weeks ago. Tried my darndest to keep my elbow up and it just.won't.go that direction. Similar direction by my doc: If something is torn, I'll get it fixed rather than deal with constant pain and lopsided swim stroke. Good thing most courses are a circle...
Damn these fun offseason sports! Maybe we can get a rehab group going.
UGH! Sorry to hear. At least you got a pass on the yard clean up. And it is December 1st after all so time to heal! Keep us posted and chin up dood!
I'm debating how to approach the issue of our snowboard trip in Big Sky, Dec 20-26. My next appt with the doc is Dec 12, 8 days before the trip and if surgery is required no way it will happen before the trip. Hell, I'll be lucky to be able to see a PT, at all, before the trip. So at this point I'm sorta in a "what's the worse thing that could happen?" kinda place
.
Keep in my mind I've had jacked up shoulders and nearly continous pain for 27yrs. Its game when it comes to shoulder pain tolerance
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Oh, and I absolutely will fall down while boarding, likely pretty often at first, but usually on my left side
The more I think about it, the more I think the doc is going to recommend surgery:
So, if surgery, any insights on what recovery would be like? I know there's what the doc says and there is what an athlete experiences. As I've invested very, very little in my fitness since IMWI
, I don't have a problem delaying that investment for as long as it takes to exit with a usuable shoulder, adjusting my downstream triathlon goals accordingly. IE, Party Master vs Competitor at Wildflower, etc 
So no running, even with the sling? I'm talking little 20-30' runs only.
Damn. Ok, do I at least get a cool scar? I like scars, have a pretty good collection....
This is me a few hours after surgery (hose is for ice machine). Probably loopy from painkillers. Good news is I had 100% recovery both times and can do all my normal SBR stuff with no issues.
!!!!!!!!! looks like the terminator! are you 100% now??? is it as good as before?