Rotator Cuff mega-CONFUSION

About a year a go I had impingement or tendinitis of my shoulder. I felt radiating pain in a nerve running from just below the shoulder to my hand. But I had full strength and range of motion in my arm, strangely. A few months later an MRI scan showed nothing wrong.
 
Today, it doesn't seem to have healed entirely. There is one, hard to find, plane of movement that "catches", so that there's pain in a little strip running below the shoulder. To find that painful movement, I have to move my arm up at 45 degrees with my elbow pointing out--it's a weird position.
 
I can bench press heavy weight, do lateral raises, rotate the arm with my elbow pointed out (I hear it popping doing this), etc, etc. which does excite the problem, giving me a dull ache on the shoulder itself, and I feel a big pump up of blood throughout the arm.
 
Any ideas?

Sounds very odd...
 
MRIs pick up soft tissue injuries fairly well.
 
You may have aggravated the injury since then and could be case of recurrence - to a less major degree.
 
It could also be a bone spur - if so, itd most probably on the humerus.
 
The radiating pain sounds like a form of neuropathy - depending on if it still exists now and how severe it is, it may be useful to do a nerve conduction study.
 
And ofcourse, as with all RC injuries, make sure u do ure rehab exercises religiously.
 
A repeat MRI + X-ray may be useful. Consult an Ortho.

Thanks for you help.

I don't have that dull radiating pain down my arm any more. It was more like a heavy, pins and needles feeling. That occured for the first week, and I had full strength and range of motion then, so the doc said impingement which struck a nerve.

To be honest, I've never really done the RC rehab exercises consistently, maybe a few times here and there. None of those movements give me any trouble or pain, just some cracking noises, so I've neglected them. Bad idea? Because it's only that one awkward movement that gives me pain and I'm afraid to do that movement with weight. The pain runs like a cord from the shoulder to the upper arm, above the biceps.

A bone spur...probably on the humerus...umm...I'll have to read up on that. How could a spur grow there?

Re: orthopedics and the humerus: Do skeletal deformities have to be surgically operated on?

Sorry my mistake, a bone spur on the Acromion not humerus -- this often causes chronic impingement syndrome. The spurs are usually due to wear and tear of the joint AC joint.
 
Regardless of whether or not you have an RC injury, doing the exercises is very useful especially for bodybuilders. Not only are they used as a rehabilitation measure, but also for prevention.

Skeletal deformtiies, in the case of bone spurs, do have to be operated on but the operation is done thru keyhole surgery and isnt anything major.

Thanks for your ideas--I had never thought of a bone spur. Does that type of wear and tear affect those who have been consistently lifting? I had been quite sedentary before I started working out last year when I got the injury.
 
I'll stop lifting and try the RC exercises for a month to see if there's any change, before going to a doctor. I'll also avoid that plane of movement that causes the pain, in case it's a spur. Any other comments?

You see, bone spurs usually form as the body repairs itself by building extra bone - generally a response to pressure, rubbing, or stress that continues over a long period of time.
 
Bone spurs can form on the acromion, which can pinch the rotator cuff tendons, resulting in irritation, inflammation, stiffness, weakness, pain, and sometimes tearing of the tendon.
 
However, bone spurs are also a common aging process - wear and tear - like i said earlier. As we get older, we generally have more of a tendency to form bone spurs - usualy on the spine and feet but can also occur in shoulder if there has been repetitive activity e.g. baseball throwing, javelin etc. So depending on your age, it could be an aging thing or it could be due to chronic irritation.
 
Surgery is usually needed for younger patients (which im taking the liberty to assume u are) so as to prevent a chronic RC syndrome.
 
If its a bone spur, RC exercises wont really help. And you are correct in saying that you should avoid that plane of movement.
 
However, all said and done, these are just suggestions, not diagnoses. Dont go on the fact that there is a bone spur in your shoulder joint. It was just a thought, a possible cause. We cant be sure unless you are examined and investigated by your physician.
 
Good luck.

I am 31 in response to your assumption that I am young. :)
 
I forgot to mention, I did 3 months of active swimming (Dec, Jan, Feb), mainly breaststroke as my version of "rehab" (very little freestyle/butterfly). I would have thought that'd be as useful as prescribed RC exercises.

I dont think swimming would substitue RC exercises for rehab
 
It could certainly be PART of the rehab but the exercises are the cornerstone and mainstay of RC injury.

I got the X-rays back today. There's no bone spur and everything is 100% in the shoulder. There "appears" to be a slight reduction in space between the acromion and humeral head, which is supposedly completely normal, anyway.
 
I'll keep at the RC rehab exercises. I'm happy to hear any other ideas you have, Lynx.

Thats good to hear. If this reduced space is normal then alls well and good. 
 
However, that said, should this space between the acromion and humerus decrease even further(can happen with inflammation from repeated overhead/overuse of the shoulder) then that reduced space can mean an impingement.
 
Impingement can cause differnet types of inflammatory reactions in the shoulder - bursitis, tendinitis and also arthritis. The first 2, bursitis and tendinitis, are common cause of shoulder pain in young people such as yourself. Impingement syndrome also weakens the rotator cuff and makes it more susceptible to injury hence its important that you do your RC exercises regularly. They dont take long and once you know all the exercises, you can perform them whenever you have some free time on your hands ( i did mine whenever i was watching TV).
 
However if both the MRI and X-Ray came back clear, then i cant imagine that it be too serious, unless someone missed something when reading these films but thats not very likely.
 
I guess then it comes to do the same things as all other injuries. Rest, rehabilitate and avoid things that aggravate it.

I made a mistake where I said I had a MRI. I actually had an UltraSound, where they put a gel on your arm and scan over it as you watch the output in real-time.

Right. Thats a different story.
 
Ultrasound is very much user-dependent. Which means, that you can only interpret an ultrasound depending on how much experience you have in diagnosing that particular injury.
 
For shoulder injuries, MRI is the best diagnostic test we have at the moment. However, this being the case, it is also expensive if you dotn have private health insurance.
 
If the pain persists and it starts to bother you, go see an Ortho with your Xray and Ultrasound reports and he/she will refer you to get an MRI.

We've established from the X-Rays that there is no skeletal deformity, so why an Ortho? I thought an ortho principally dealt with skeletal deformities.
 
Ignore that last paragraph .... I just realised there was more to orthopedics than plain old bones :)

Sorry to bring this post back to life here, but last week I noticed that my left shoulder was irritating me.  I knew that the RC is back there, from baseball, and hearing about injuries. I thought that it may have been a sore muscle, but not today!!!  I couldn't even move my left arm at all today.  The entire pain is in my shoulder joint.  Not sure if it is RC or a spur, or what the case is.....  All I know is that it FREAKING HURTS!!!!!

A bit more background on this....  Late last week, I would go and move it around, b/c it was stiff, understandable, as I was not using it as much as I used to.  It would pop/grind on every rotation I was giving it.  So, last night it started to hurt a bit more, and I had tried to block out the pain.  I'm pretty good at that!  :)  But when my alarm clock went off this morning, I nearly screamed when I used my left arm to shut my alarm off.  I suffered all throughout work today.  I thought I was going to drop everything I lifted today. 

Yeas back, maybe 3, I used to work out 3-4x/week.  I was getting myself into some pretty good shape.  But nice weather come around, and lost all interest there.  I had other things on my mind.  I forgot to mention that the pain is spreading in towards my collar bone...  Now I think I'm worried!!!

Should I see my family dr. or an ortho???

Confused fully!!!

Chris~