I've been in the Plumbing & Heating field for 52 years, started at 12 w/Dad. Had my hips replaced, trying to go easy on my knees, the problem is my shoulders. Was recommended they be replaced 5 years ago, but I knew that would put me out of business after talking to people that had it done.

Anyone got some success stories? Thanks!!

What's specifically the matter with your shoulders?

Both mine have been dislocated and my right shoulder has no joint capsule left. I did extensive muscle-building of every muscle that surrounds the shoulder and the only things I can't do are throw a baseball over-hand, arm-wrestle, and bench press with a straight bar.

Elastic workout bands are convenient and can be used anywhere.

If you're experiencing pain, ice is your friend.

Tony.

Dislocated my R shoulder in boot camp. Doctors wrote a novel about how they felt I was shirking duty. That was in 88 still bugs me occasionally…haven’t done anything for it.

5 years ago they did images and he said to me arthritis, bursitis, and a thin rotator cuff. Right now, I have good days and bad days, almost all nights are shit!!

I'm starting to have shoulder pain. Not bad. It doesn't hurt just sitting on the couch, but if I have to control a bit of weight away from my body it sings out a bit.

I had reoccurring bursitis my shoulder from overuse. PT was no help.

Went to the Orthopedic surgeon, he recommended "decompression" where they widen the channel for the tension to pass through.

Follow up PT, return to work, less then a year later the pain returned.

Back to the Orthopedic surgeon, this time they relocated the biceps tendon from going through my shoulder to a screw into my upper humerus.

3rd round of PT, and I have 95% range of motion, pain is much more tolerable.

My right shoulder is the worst as I am right-handed, as it goes on even lifting a screw gun to the ceiling, I have to assist with my left to accomplish the task.

Some trouble during day with both shoulders. Can live with that. Night time is a bitch. Shoulders and arm pain along with fingers numb or tingling.

I broke my right collarbone twice in high school then add in the years of abuse from the military, construction and law enforcement it bothers me all of the time.

My father is going through the same thing after 42 years in construction.

After numerous tests and xrays I learned that I have arthritis, weak rear lats/delts along with really knotted up muscles in my back and shoulders.

The PT clinic I was going to was okay and it was working slowly but that clinic was more for people who worked at a desk or retired not someone who wanted to go back into LE or retraining for the Army.

My problem is that I cannot do pushups, bench presses,etc.. Heck even doing arm circles kills my inner elbow and shoulder.

I don’t have any shoulder injuries, and haven’t, but have had the typical “kink” in the neck that can significantly cause range of movement issues and pain for several days.

It occurred recently and after a couple days of no progress despite rest, stretching, massage, and some work with a CAT (mostly percussion massage gun and more stretching) I talked the the CAT again. She said come back for some Graston and cupping.

After that session she said expect significant relief in 24-48 hours. Sure enough, 36 hours after the treatment the issue was 95% gone. It was amazing.

It’s not my first success story with cupping. I get monthly cupping around my knees to deal with chronic knee pain. It works amazingly well. I had 3x a week visits with a physical therapist for 10 minutes with no real progress on the knees. I switch to the CAT (Certified Athletic Trainer) as my workplace brought her in as a wellness benefit. Once a week visits, the third visit she did Graston and cupped it for the first time. Pain was gone and hasn’t been back since. Monthly cupping keeps it in check despite heavy squats and deadlifts, and it has been 18 months.

Find someone to try cupping. It’s cheap, non-invasive, quick, and just may work.

I got a severe shoulder dislocation in Judo training a solid 1/2 century ago. Surgery was rather primitive choices in those days, so I put it off. And off. Finally started conservative care & minimize pain for a couple decades. Then various rural estate chores inflicted more damage in my golden geezer years. New surgeon gave me 5 choices, with surgery being the last.

Since giving up fence post hole digging, hand maul splitting 4-6 cords of fire wood a year, & various other not well considered self inflicted traumas, surgery horizon is not so near. I do minimize rotator cuff/arthric issues, and find a bit of cortisone now & then does wonderful. Last shot was nearly 3 years ago. I found 10% of what I was doing was producing 90% of my pain. A little PT and muscle tissue work helps. Being retired helps moderate my trauma infliction. Good luck.

Dislocated one shoulder and what appears to be a recurring impingement in the other. First approach has been cortisone injections. If that doesn’t last more than a couple weeks, then PT, which will take weeks, if not months, to clear up the shoulder problems. Take fish oil, NSAIDs and prednisone, they will all help to relieve the inflammation.

For pain, icing works, as do the NSAIDs and a TEMS unit (electrical stimulation). All are short duration.

Impingement was the word I was looking for
(Thanks Nuclear)

That is what I have plus golfers elbow (which is really a problem) on the same side which is starting to go down to my wrist, and fingers

Unfortunately, I have been using the left side more which is starting to cause problems.

What really pisses me off is when my shoulders start to bother me reaching up to the clothes lines, or going through a duffel bag.

I think to myself really: Doing dead lifts or slinging 50lb bags of mortar/quickcrete I get but putting up a hanger? Jeeez.....

quote:

Originally posted by wreckdiver:
My right shoulder is the worst as I am right-handed, as it goes on even lifting a screw gun to the ceiling, I have to assist with my left to accomplish the task.

If you have not yet tried working with a good physical therapist, that is where I would start. My guy focused on strength and stability of both shoulders. (You mentioned lifting issues, that's what brought me into this thread to comment.)

We added more exercises each week. The strength and stability definitely improved, but it got to a point - for me - that I had plateaued and the shoulder would HURT more when I did the exercises. That's when he stopped me and said I needed to go for an MRI.

I ended up with a bicep tendonitis procedure on the right shoulder where they cut your bicep and reattach it to the humerus so the tendon portion was not wrapping over and pulling on the joint. I'm convinced that due to all of the PT in advance of the surgery, my recovery time was cut way down. At two weeks, they told me I was at about 10 to 12 weeks and they were blown away about the range of motion I had.

Still took a long time to heal, and I never got to 100% until I started swimming again this past summer. When I'm swimming a mile a week, shoulder is at 100%.

Good luck. I'm told shoulders are really complex joins and healing takes time.

My knees are starting to bug me too, so I did some research and bought a set of flexible knee braces incorporating magnets, almost immediate as in 3 days, they feel like I'm 20 years younger. They also make them for shoulder's so I think that is what I will try first. Thanks for all the replies.

Once again Mom was right! She once told me "Getting old ain't for sissys!!!

Getting old doesn't suck but being old sure does

On month 4 of recovering from torn rotator cuff/torn labrum surgery. Bothered me for the past 10 years. Doc said to wait until I couldn't take it anymore. Finally got to the point that I had to do something. My bicep tendon was also relocated to bone. I had all the weakness and moderate pain with certain activities. I am now at the point where I have full use of my arm and am starting weight training on the repair. certain motions are still weak but getting better.

Now I'm starting to complain about my left shoulder

I have impingement in both shoulders. Had my left rotator and acromion process rebuilt 20 years ago. If you don't do anything exercise-wise for it, it will continually get worse. There are a lot of simple strength and stretching routines that can alleviate a lot of shoulder/rotator cuff issues - get with your PT and get started.