Has anyone had a damaged rotator cuff?

[Alan]

I diagnosed myself after listening to a sports talk call in show on the radio. While I do plan to go to the doctor when things slow down at w*rk, would welcome your "second opinions". This has been going on for over a year; no particular thing happened - just realized that I had pain in my right shoulder. No pain at all as long as arm stays to the side or in front of my body and isn't lifted any higher than shoulder height. Cannot raise my arm over my head any more nor can I reach behind my back due to knee-buckling pain. Can't sleep on my right side any longer, and that bites as I sleep best on my right side. Are there exercises I could do to cure this?

Are you sure it's a rotator cuff tear and not chronic tendonitis or bursitis? What you are describing sounds like it could be one of those as well. Strengthening muscles could be part of the relief, but it would be best to be sure what you are dealing with first.

Normally my strategy is waiting to see if a problem fixes itself, but your stories prove that's not always a good strategy. I'll have it seen about; sure dread a shot in the shoulder.

Your symptoms sound exactly the same as my problem in both shoulders a few years ago, which turned out to be tendinitis caused by arthritis My right shoulder was the worst and I learned to shave left-handed because even those angles with my right arm became incredibly painfull.

I did the shots for a while (yes, they hurt like hell) and eventually went in for the surgery, which was called a shoulder decompression, where the surgeon finds the bone spurs impinging on the tendons and shaves them off.

This was back in 2003 and I had the shoulders done 3 months apart, although full recovery for each was only 6 weeks. The results have been wonderful and I've been playing tennis ever since. I now make sure I do plenty of exercise to keep those joints strengthened but if I had to have the surgery every 5-10 years I would do it.

 

[John Galt III]

Bubba,

Similar situation here. I hurt my right shoulder lifting a heavy vacuum cleaner up high with my right arm. The shoulder then hurt if I tried to move my arm too high. I just rested it, thinking it would heal by itself. After about 2 years of waiting, I went to the doc. Had an MRI. The tech reading the MRI in India said it was a rotator cuff tear, but the doctor said he wasn't sure. Anyway, the doc gave me a rubber stretchy and a diagram of exercises to do. I did the exercises for oh about a month, every day, and the pain went away and I got complete use of the arm back !!!

I also got "frozen shoulder" in the left arm, later, but that's another story.


Good Luck.

 

[LOL!]

Some exercises and treatments are discussed in this NYTimes article: Phys Ed: How to Fix a Bad Tennis Shoulder - NYTimes.com

 

[Orchidflower]

Friend's husband had the rotor cuff surgery cause he believes everything a physician tells him (apologies to all you physicians here). He told me it was painful, painful, painful to have this surgery.
Personally, I'd try everything in the world before submitting to any kind of cutting on me.

 

[Moemg]

I worked in an orthopedic surgery center so I met lots of shoulder patients . Some just have minimal pain and some are in agony . My SO had both rotator cuffs repaired and he did sleep in a lazy boy for awhile but he had minimal pain . It really depends what surgery is done and the pain tolerance of the patient .