Shoulder Injuries?

[fongman]

Originally Posted by steveooo

....Best thing you can do is let the body try to repair the damage on its own initially. For shoulders, this usually means to immobilize it, which is a pain in the butt, but effective. You can buy a shoulder sling at walgreens for pretty cheap. I'd get one that supports the shoulder, as well as straps it to the body. You use your arm so much in the day, it's too easy to cheat with the ones that don't have the body strap. Even sleep with it, I'm sure you've already woken yourself up with shooting pain from moving your arm around a night? I know I do when I re-injure mine. Strap your arm up with your hand elevated higher than your elbow. For the first week, do ice only for about 20 min, 5X a day.

After the week of rest, light movement is good. Your body will tell you what is appropriate. Like Andy said, you can switch between heat and ice now, and start looking at some PT....

Be careful if you decide to immobilize your shoulder. A few years back I had a skiing accident and had a slight tear of the labrum. I had previous experience with shoulder problems and PT, so I thought I would immobilize it and then do some of the exercises I used before. Unfortunately, it didn't take very long before I had a frozen shoulder.

I was covered by Sharp PPO and they were great. I got a referral to a Orthopedic surgeon, got an MRI, and was given a surgery date. I decided I didn't want to be cut, so they gave me a cortizone shot and I started PT therapy 3 times a week, plus at home while watching TV. It took 2 years to get full mobility back.

Brian, I know what you are going through with Kaiser. One of the guys I worked with was having shoulder problems at the same time as me, but he had Kaiser and the doctors wouldn't let him have an MRI until he had x number of cortizone shots. The treatment wasn't helping, but they still wouldn't do the MRI. Good luck with your injury......and with Kaiser!