Shoulder Impingement/ Instability--Help! - General Health Message Board

MountainReader · 04-03-2009, 10:48 PM

I've got some chronic shoulder pain. I found out about 2 years ago that I have some multidirectional instability in my shoulder joints. Because the ligaments are too lax, I have some subluxation (minor dislocation) of my shoulder joint every time I move my shoulder. This has resulted in tendonitis and bursitis because of swelling and pinching in my shoulder.

I did the PT thing for about 6 months. I had a Cortizone shot. It worked wonders for about 2 months. I then had Subacromial Decompression surgery. The idea there was to "clean up" the shoulder and remove some bone so things didn't pinch so much and there was some room for the swelling. The surgery was a year ago today. It was successful. After several months of PT, I was back to near normal range of motion and the pain gradually went away. I was very happy with the results. Unfortunately, the pain has now returned. I'm having upper motion shoulder pain and some bicep pain that gets worse as I go through the day.

I will admit that I got lazy about my at home PT about 7 months after the shoulder surgery because I had some other surgery that took a lot out of me. I'm now getting back to doing the shoulder PT exercises again in hopes of strengthening the shoulder muscles to hold things in place. I'm also icing the shoulder down and taking anti-inflammatories.

At this point, I just don't know what else to do. I really can't afford to go through more PT sessions. I have tons of medical bills from this last year. The pain just gets worse and worse as the weeks go on.

Any insight or advice you can give on how to cope with this would be much appreciated.

jenj770 · 04-04-2009, 04:58 AM

I don't know if this would appeal to you but I have found magnet therapy to be very helpful. I am using a magnetic shoulder wrap to help with my post rotator cuff surgery a month ago (along with the PT).

MountainReader · 04-04-2009, 08:46 PM

Jenj
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into it.

MountainReader · 04-04-2009, 11:05 PM

Jenj

Is there a brand on your magnetic shoulder wrap? I've tried to do an internet search and the only one I found was really expensive. There have to be more of them out there.

Thanks,
Mountain Reader

Misty800 · 04-05-2009, 02:18 PM

hmmmm.....you have discovered that stopping the exercises was a mistake. I too, stopped exercises and pain has been bad for 5 months. It is gradually, very gradually getting better with exercises.

Too bad we did not keep up the exercises.