Old Shoulder Injury Flaring Up Again

[chili]

Dr. Steve,

In 1998 I suffered a dislocated right shoulder playing football. It was a backward dislocation that occurred when I threw a forearm at a 300+ lb man charging towards me. My orthopedic surgeon told me he'd have to go through the back of my shoulder to repair the damage, which included a torn glenoid labrum. I got a second opinion and had it scoped. My original doctor told me straight up that I'd made a mistake in just getting it scoped.

Over the past decade its given me a little trouble here and there, it's always sort of clicked and caught sometimes. I've never been able to do a military press or any type of strenuous lifting over my head, but day-to-day it's fine.

Over the past year I've gotten into running and lifting weights regularly and relatively intensely. The past couple of weeks my shoulder has really, really bothered me. What steps can I take to lessen the pain? Is it common for such injuries, once repaired, to degenerate over time? What, other than icing it, should my next step be?

Thanks!

[Dr Steve]

Dr. Steve,

In 1998 I suffered a dislocated right shoulder playing football. It was a backward dislocation that occurred when I threw a forearm at a 300+ lb man charging towards me. My orthopedic surgeon told me he'd have to go through the back of my shoulder to repair the damage, which included a torn glenoid labrum. I got a second opinion and had it scoped. My original doctor told me straight up that I'd made a mistake in just getting it scoped.

Over the past decade its given me a little trouble here and there, it's always sort of clicked and caught sometimes. I've never been able to do a military press or any type of strenuous lifting over my head, but day-to-day it's fine.

Over the past year I've gotten into running and lifting weights regularly and relatively intensely. The past couple of weeks my shoulder has really, really bothered me. What steps can I take to lessen the pain? Is it common for such injuries, once repaired, to degenerate over time? What, other than icing it, should my next step be?

Thanks!

I had to pass this one on to PA John, who specializes in orthopedics:

Increase in activity to a once injured joint will likely always flare it up...unless it is trained or conditioned to expect the stress. Conditioning the shoulder is good, but going into it light at first would be good. It sounds like there may be more to it than an old injury. A shoulder scope is fine, it used to be the only way to really look at a joint until the MRI was developed. (and even today an MRI can miss an injury) I would recommend some ice, over the counter anti-inflamatory such as naproxen or ibuprofen IF your stomach can take it and you don't have an allergy. Do you really need to be conditioning that hard, or is it the jock in the weightroom mentality "if he can bench 350 lbs, then I can too."?
My recommendations are rest, ice, anti-inflamatories, formal physical therapy for 4-6 weeks, and if that doesnt help, then an MRI would be good.

your pal,


PA John

[chili]

Thanks!