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I've seen so many have more trouble after surgery that you better think long and hard about how much pain you can take,
Rehab is what separates winners from losers, Push thru the pain and a good surgeon can fix it,leave it in that sling and whine,
We will call you nemo.
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Any how I had previously seperated my shoulder (pretty sure its called the AC). This time I seperated it along with some other nasty injuries. No surgery due to no insurance or cash at the time. Some doctors have told me that surgery is a last option, others have told me its a good idea for most of these injuries.
Back on topic, my AC seperation apparently was a "total" seperation. To this day if I put my shoulder in a position that takes pressure off the AC area, I can hold the bone between my fingers and move it all around.
I am trying to get to the point.
Okay the point is, After everything other than some nerve damage healed as good as it was going to, my shoulder muscles all continued to atrophy (shrink) to the point where I no longer had a left detoid that could be seen, just bone, worse than a 10 year old skinny girl.
For several years, I guess it was 10 years to be exact, I talked to therapist and doctors and lots of cool smart people but none of the recommended exercises would bring back my deltoid muscle in any way.
Finally last year I stumbled across a picture of a guy who had a MX shoulder injury that leg to a condition called "winged Scapula".
It makes your shoulder blade stick out and jacks with the mechanics of your shoulder. I guess what happened was my seperated shoulder messed up the way the shoulder moved, causing the winged scapula which further messed with the proper way all the parts of the shoulder should work together and led to where I lost all use of the deltoid muscles.
Finally I found some methods of correcting a winged scapula and that seems to be allowing my deltoids to get back to work. For the first time in ten years or so I can lift more than a pound over my head!!!
I guess the reason I am sharing this is in case any of you with seperated ACs run into the same issue I did. The shoulder is a somewhat complex joint and if one of the parts is not holding the rest in their normal balance of work, it can cause hard to diagnose long term messed up crap to happen.
Good luck guys!
separation and dislocation explained
--- Dislocated shoulder. In this injury, a fall or blow causes the top of your arm bone to pop out of the shoulder socket.
Unlike a lot of joints in your body -- your elbow, for instance -- the shoulder is incredibly mobile. You can twist and move your upper arm in almost any direction. But there's a price for this ease of movement. The shoulder joint is inherently unstable, prone to slipping out of place.
In severe cases of dislocated shoulder, the tissue and nerves around the shoulder joint get damaged. If you keep dislocating your shoulder, you could wind up with chronic instability and weakness.
--- Separated shoulder. Despite the name, this injury doesn't directly affect the shoulder joint. Instead, a fall or blow tears one of the ligaments that connects the collarbone to shoulder blade.
Since it's no longer anchored, the collarbone may move out of position and push against the skin near the top of your shoulder. Although separated shoulders can cause deformity, people usually recover fully with time.
My clavicle still sticks out far and my shoulder gets sore/fatigued easily but I have full range of motion and such.
Pit Row
Damn motocross!!
At the ER, they had me lay face down and stretch my arm over head to get an x-ray. When I did, the shoulder popped back in.
They put me in a sling and said there's nothing you can do about it.
I then saw an Ortho surgeon who told me that for a pro athlete they usually would not do surgery. (I believe he treated a lot of the pros in baseball/football).
He said that if they did do surgery, they would take the tendon/ligament that connects the outside of the shoulder and reattach it to the scapula to pull it down and remove the bump. That sounded an aweful lot like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It didn't make sense. He also said that if you do this, then the two ends of the AC joint would touch and cause pain (bone on bone at this point since the cartilage in the AC joint is shot). If the ends rub and cause pain, they would do another surgery to simply trim a bit off the end of the scapula so the ends would no longer rub.
Then he answered a question of mine and basically said that if you hold the bump down while it heals, once the scar tissue forms, there would be no bump. It's not the ligament/tendon holding it in place. It's the scar tissue.
I was pissed that no one told me this when the injury occurred!
So, after a few days, maybe a week, I can't remember, I formed a pad out of medical tape, placed it over the bump, then got one of those lower back support things you see people wear at Home Depot, etc... put both straps over the medical tape pad, and sinch'd it down, holding the the bump where it needed to be. It hurt like hell for a half hour because scar tissue had already formed, then it was fine. Pain was no worse than the day before. I kept it like that for 3 days, then took it off and the bump stayed down for several hours.
Thinking I was over the hump, when I went to sleep that night, I didn't tighten it as tight as usual. In the morning, the bump was back. I let off the pressure a little too soon.
At that point, I couldn't really tell what was what in my shoulder. It didn't seem like what I could feel by pressing on my shoulder matched what I saw on the anatomy images on the internet, so I got a little nervous about what I was doing, kind of gave up and decided to let the bump happen.
Well, I ended up with only a small bump. It was worth it. Today, the shoulder doesn't affect me when riding. Actually, doing nothing is the worst thing to do.
Today, at 51, I have almost no bump at all. It's gotten better over time. I believe that taking the pressure off the damaged tendon/ligament allowed it to partially heal. And today, for some reason, the bump is almost gone. Whether the tendon/ligament has healed more, or the muscle around the area is stronger I can't say, but holding the bump down for a few days, for me was totally worth it.
I'm convinced that if a person starts holding the bump down within a few hours of the injury (about the time they put your arm in a sling), that there would be no additional pain (maybe less because it's more stable) and that as my doctor stated, in many cases there would be no bump at all.
If you're going to try this, the downward pressure doesn't need to be severe, just enough to hold the clavical in place.
I would convince your doctor to work with you on this and maybe help in determining how much pressure is needed. If done right way, I don't believe it would take much pressure at all.
I'm putting this out there because I may be the only one in the world who's ever tried this, and I personally believe it should be the standard treatment.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor. I'm an engineer.
Have a great day!
Radical
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