I have these. Somewhat in both shoulders, but worse in my right (dominant). I went to an orthopedic surgeon a few years back. He gave me cortisone injections and sent me for physical therapy. I did the PT until the insurance I had at the time stopped paying. None of this really had any effect. The PT gave me some stretches to do, which I still do, to really no effect. It seem to be getting progressively worse.

Anyone find anything that really works?

Find a PT that specializes in overhand athletes (baseball, tennis, swimming) as they will have the most experience treating such issues. You can also search "arm care for pitchers" and find a wealth of information on treating impengment and strengthening the shoulder.

I had a mild impingement in left shoulder cured through aggressive PT. ~10 weeks 3x per week

I had a very painful and movement limiting impingement in my left shoulder. PT failed, surgery fixed and they also found a torn bicep tendon.

In February, mine started as an impingement. Started PT in March and went for more than three months. Started at 3x per week and weened off.

I was much better than day one, but still had issues and got to the point where my PT exercises at home actually made things worse.

My PT guy is really good, but some damage can not be healed by PT.

The next step was an MRI. The radiologist injects the die and you lay there for 60-90 minutes for the MRI scan.

Results indicated a significant labrum tear referred to as a SLAP tear. Basically, it was wrecked. Now your diagnosis might well be different than mine especially since you mentioned the rotator cuff. Mine was fine.

My choice was deal with it and to occasional PT stretch and strengthening to keep the status quo or surgery. I had the surgery about three weeks ago.

My surgery was a Biceps Tenodesis procedure. "Fixing" the labrum with full SALP tears do not generally have good results. So they went in, did a debridement of the bad areas of the labrum, cut the biceps tendon that goes up over and into the labrum, and reattached it to the top of the humorous bone. (Takes the pulling effect on the labrum out of the equation.)

Supposedly this should take away the pain I was feeling when walking distances, on my bike and when I'm swimming. Those activities were out-of-the question for me, hence I went with the surgery so I can get those activities back.

All of the PT done before the surgery was worthwhile. They are a bit baffled that I'm three weeks out and have the range of motion that indicates I'm three or four months post op. I just have to be REALLY careful not to lift anything with my right arm, as that could tear the tendon out of the screw into the bone before it fully heals after six to eight weeks.

Good luck. I would go back to your ortho guy and ask "what's the next step?" Most likely they will suggest the MRI to see what the heck is going on in there.

Had a right shoulder impingement in the fall of 2012 that carried into early 2013. I did a few PT sessions at our employee clinic (Workman's Comp case), but they didn't help at all. They released me to my PCP, who's first order was an MRI. The orthopedist read the films and said I had a very SLIGHT tear in my rotator cuff, but trying to fix it surgically would probably cause more problems than currently existed.

Found a great physical therapist through my PCP; he and his staff were absolutely phenomenal and FINALLY got my shoulder back in good shape. It took many more PT sessions than they originally thought it would, but things finally came around. It's been 100% ever since. It might all depend on the the therapist...

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All of the PT done before the surgery was worthwhile. They are a bit baffled that I'm three weeks out and have the range of motion that indicates I'm three or four months post op. I just have to be REALLY careful not to lift anything with my right arm, as that could tear the tendon out of the screw into the bone before it fully heals after six to eight weeks.

I would suggest that if you are over 40 you take that 6 to 8 weeks and add another 3 weeks. Because as we age the rate of healing slows down, mainly because we don't have as much growth hormones in circulation. It's far better to wait a bit longer for something to heal than it is to push too hard too soon and ball things up completely.

I had impingement at 65 years of age in my right shoulder and went to PT for about 6 weeks and then did several home exercises for several months and that pretty much fixed it. IMO best to go back to Ortho specialist and get evaluated again.

I was doing a lot of these type exercises. My impingement was something to do with external rotation.

https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/...conditioning-program

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Originally posted by grumpy1:
I had impingement at 65 years of age in my right shoulder and went to PT for about 6 weeks and then did several home exercises for several months and that pretty much fixed it. IMO best to go back to Ortho specialist and get evaluated again.

Pretty much the same story for me.