Seperated shoulder advice here

Hey everyone. I wanted to post this incase anyone has or ever gets a seperated shoulder, looks or searches for this.

A little about me and my story...

I seperated my right shoulder in November 06, playing football...in the rain...:) I went to the hospitol where they took xrays and told me to go home and call an orthopedic doctor. I didnt have the money so I had to do my own diagnostic and research. (Which was unfortunate :( I wish I had insurance..)

I had a stage 3 tear. A seperation involves the AC joint in the shoulder, and can vary in stages 1-5 I beileve, 1 being a slight tear in one of the ligaments holding the joint together, and a 5 being a complete tear and has moved location in your body.

My stage 3 meant that both of my ligaments in the joint were torn and you could actually see my collar bone sticking up next to my shoulder.

It was hell...The most important thing I ever did even while hurt so bad was to stretch it as much as I could, this was part of my rehab I stretched it every single day to give it some kind of movement since I was in a sling for a good 2 months.

I was sidelined completly from the gym for about 1 month. Going back to the gym, I couldnt do any kind of movement that involved my shoulder.

So I did lots of cardio in a sling, haha and lost a good amount of weight. I was losing muscle too, so I decided to atleast do abs/legs in the gym. The cardio had to be done on an eliptical, because my shoulder couldnt take running.

I was able to use the smith machine to squat holding the bar with only my left arm, and using other various machines that kept pressure off my shoulder. I was able to actually return to bench, overhead and incline presses in April of 08. I was incredibly weak and my shoulder was still fragile. To give you an idea of how much upper body strength I lost my bench went from 285 to having trouble with repping 135.

My rehab took a new direction when my shoulder progressivly got better. I would do rotator cuff exercises and latteral raises with very light weight.

And the fact I still looked very funny with my bone sticking out... :(

But I have spent about 10 months back consitently in the gym, My upper body is now stronger than ever, I have built my traps up enough so that you can barely even notice my bone, and best of all I have almost ZERO pain ever with my lifts.

I remember how hard it was to keep focus and stay strong, I remember thinking will I ever get back to where I was? Will I ever be able to comfortably bench, clean, press again?

and I did, with lots of rehab, time and patience...So incase anyone ever has this unfortunate injury happen to them, does a search or see's this thread. Im here to help with any questions you may have and I will help to the best of my ability!

Just got to thinking, maybe someone sometime might need someone about this type of injury!!

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

I so needed this post NmOney34.I seperated my right shoulder almost 20 years ago in a high school football game.

Pure torture,after it happened i couldn't raise my arm more than 2 or 3 inches.By time they got me to the hospital they said it had jumped back into place.All i can remember is that for like 3 months i had to wear it in a sling and even then i couldn't raise it more than 2 or 3 inches.

It completely put a stop to my weight lifting,simply because I was like you without insurance there wasn't alot of people volunteering to help me with rehab and at 16 i just done what coach said and gave it time.

Which it did get feeling better and i was back running the ball and lifting weights again the next year but your post about the ligaments have got me wondering if i still have damage to mine.I have discomfort when trying to sleep,and sometimes it especially hurts when i wake in the morning.

Yesterday i tried doing inclined dumbbell flys,just for a change with light weight.Man i just about fell off the bench from the pain about my 4th rep.Needless to say i won't be doing those anymore.Im about 8 months into lifting again from about a 15 year get fat and be lazy period.

I guess my big question for you is if i go to a doctor what kind of test or MRI do i ask for to check the ligaments.I ask because ive already had the whole ink in the cuff and MRI done about 5 years ago.Doctors said i just had inflamation in my rotator cuff.Antibiotics fixed that.My luck if it is ligament damage its probably not reversible now.

Thank you for this post,if nothing else at least now i can use you to help motivate me thru some of my workouts where i have shoulder pain.

hey! glad to hear it was of some help.

From the research I have done, the ligament damage is irreversible right from the beginning of the injury.

What happens is your ligaments form scar tissue to reconnect the joint, whether you have surgery or not. Surgery for the most part is just to put it back into place, and get rid of the vanity issue of the bone sticking out. It also takes a little longer to recover if surgery was used.

My guess is that when it first happened you gave it time, rehab and you gradually worked your way back into the weight room. Have you been in the weight room ever since then? do you still stretch it?

Can you do any upper body lifts pain free? is your injury still visible?

Do you do rotator cuff exercises at all?

I would try doing a few sets of rotator stuff 2-3 times a week, as well as stretching it every day increasing the range of motion, and hopefully will allow you to gradually go up in weight.

I will do some research for the doctor question for you to see if I can find anything.

I had the same pain when i first started back in the gym and the stretching and light cuff lifts helped me so much.

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

ORIGINAL: Nm0ney34

Have you been in the weight room ever since then?       Not since i graduated

do you still stretch it?      Yes

Can you do any upper body lifts pain free?          bench with bb is pretty painful with heavier weight so ive been using dumbells to get me by.Shrugs are completely painless (weird).Its just pretty much a slight dull pain on most excercises.But now Flys of any sort are impossible.

is your injury still visible?        No,the knot went away probably 6 to 8 months after the injury.

Do you do rotator cuff exercises at all?        Not anymore,after the pain from inflamation went away i stopped.


I had the same pain when i first started back in the gym and the stretching and light cuff lifts helped me so much.     I will do the same Thank you.

yeah its funny, when I was coming back exercises you think would hurt like shrugs were very easy. Like I can go shrug 405 with NO shoulder pain at all...it baffles me.

Everything I have read about this injury unfortunately says that as you get older you get more susceptible to pain and arthritis, thats why I try to stay so flexible and stay in the gym.

Try doing the shoulder exercises 2-3 times a week along with stretching it every day to increase that range of motion, try them for a few weeks and let me know how you feel, below are a few links to some of the exercises you can do.

Here are some links to hopefully help you. Good luck!

http://www.orthoassociates.com/shoulder1.htm

http://www.shapefit.com/shoulder-exercises-side-lateral-raises.html
- This is an example of the lateral raises, use 5lb plates and work your way up to 10lb, and try to make it slower than normal lateral raises, you can do these to the sides, front or angle it a bit. This was the most important shoulder exercise with weight that I ever did.

http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00067
- This has a lot of different stretches you can perform and advices you when and how many times a day to do them.

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

i just posted a thread on sepearation before i saw this, its been a month now since my fall, it was a n ac joint grade 2 i think. Its getting better now, i have hardly moved it for a month as was told to rest it, so u think i should be doing stretches everyday now???
 
how soon do u think i can start lifting weights again?????  many thanks

Hey, sorry to hear it happened.

However, yes there are things you can be doing since it has been a month.

Your first priority should be to get your shoulders range of motion back. Refer to my post above for links on stretch's. This should be your first and only priority, and dont even think about lifting any kind of light weights until you have your ROM back. I started stretching after about a week, so it may take you longer.

You should be doing these stretches everyday, I would say Atleast 3 times, more if you feel comfortable. If your arm has hardly been moved for a month, your going to have some pain stretching it.

This is a timeline for progression from myself and the reading I have done on the injury.

Yours is a grade 2, so it is not as severe.

I would say about 3-8 weeks you should be able to comfortable do shoulder rehab exercises with weights. Most of these exercises are the same as rotator cuff exercises, also including latteral raises front and side with very light weight.

after that it depends on your bodys progression and your degree of injury. Since yours was only a grade 2, you SHOULD be able to start doing all your lifts again with very light weight by 12 weeks.

Mine was a grade 3, took me a full 7 months before I was able to perform lifts like bench/shoulder press etc...However I have read of people with grade 3 injurys who cant even go to the gym without discomfort, or who take years to full recover. Again this is all in your rehab (stretch's and shoulder exercises) and your own body.

But short answer, you should defenitly be stretching and once your FULL, I cant stress that enough your FULL ROM is back then hit the gym and perform those rehab shoulder exercises, and let time do its thing.

Hope that helps, feel free to get a hold of me if you have any more questions.

ORIGINAL: ian

i just posted a thread on sepearation before i saw this, its been a month now since my fall, it was a n ac joint grade 2 i think. Its getting better now, i have hardly moved it for a month as was told to rest it, so u think i should be doing stretches everyday now???

how soon do u think i can start lifting weights again?????  many thanks

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

ok cheers man great help!!!

i was told 2day by the hosp it was grade 3, but im healing fast cos i got a job as a gradener my movement is back quick and not going gym yet, but doc rekons 6 weeks then onto light weights doing mostly shoulder! so not too bad hopefully..

 Hello NmOney34 and everyone else! I to have a grade 3 shoulder seperation...a severe grade 3 my doc says.
 

here's what muscle I am working with....and I checked out the link for excersises..TY!

good post Nmoney.  I also suffered a type 2 ac tear while i was deployed in iraq.  I was horse playing wrestling with a friend and got flipped and came down on my left shoulder.  Initially i couldent even raise my arm more then two inches let alone remove my shirt with out great discomfort.  Unfortunately this was during O.I.F. 1 and i had to complete the last two months of my tour with this condition.  At the time i was 19 and benching 309 lbs (20 kg plates)  and only weighed 170.  After the injury i didnt even dare try a push up. 

After about two weeks i decided to go see the physician assitant that we had on the compound and he set up for me to ride on a convoy to one of the bigger camps that had x-rays.  The A/C tear showed up in the weighted x-rays which were the ones where i was holding something.   The x-ray showed a gap about as wide as a pen.

When i got back from Iraq i saw another P.A. and told him about my injury and he gave me a consultation to physical therapy.  Thats one of the things that blows with the millitary,  they always send you to physical therapy before referring you to ortho.   When i went to physical therapy they ordered X-rays but nothing showed up on the plane films.  They had me go through about 6 months of physical therapy where i did different exercises for my shoulder 3 times a week.  This helped me regain some trength but i was still always in pain.  At thtis point i began lifting weights again real light but my shoulder began giving me problems as i progressed in weight.  My improvememnts in physical therapy began to stall so they finally gave me a consultation to ortho.  My shoulder lacked strength and would fatigue with repetitious exercises like jumping jacks or high reps in push ups.

When i went to ortho they took additional x rays but these ones were different.  The X- rays showed up on a computer screen and the ortho doc had a little ruler on the screen where he could measure everything.  Just witht the naked eye you really couldent see much difference but he measured both my left and right AC's and there was a significant difference.   a month later  i had an MRI done on my left shoulder where they injected dye into my shoulder.

He then gave me a cortisone shot in the shoulder but that just made me break out in acnee.  A month later at my follow up they recommended surgery.   I was diagnosed with a type 2 ac tear and shoulder impigment.


They did a clavical resection on my left shoulder and the recovery was very slow.  I saw numerous ortho docs and they all told me differnt things,   some said my shoulder would be normal after surgery, and others said it would never be the same.  Most of them told me it would be about a six  month recovery after surgery.  Six months past and i was pretty much pain free but my shoulder was weaker and fatigued alot quicker.   I also underwent another 3 months phyical therapy after surgery.

I was initially regretting having surgery but as time progressed my shoulder began progressing.  It took about a year and a half for my shoulder to fully heal after surgery.  I've read on some ortho sites where others have said it also took them about the same amount of time to fully heal and that it had something to do with the shoulder recrystalizing.  

    I began lifting weights again and was able to regain all of my strength and more.  Theres always that sense of cautiousness with my left shoulder.   I stay away from explosive exercises like power cleans out of fear of reagrivating my shoulder.  So far the only exercise that bothers my shoulder is pull ups.  As of right now im trying to rebuild using the lat pull down and then want to move back to pull ups.  

    Now my shoulder only bothers me when im not active.  If i just sit on my bottom and never work out i start to feel pain in my shoulder.  When im active and are lifting weights regularly i feel no pain.  When i take a couple months off of lifting my shoulder starts to ache.  Then when i start lifting again my shoulder hurts a little for the first two weeks until it gets used to lifting.  Overall it was about a two and half year process with waiting for appointments, consultations, mri's, physical therapy and recovery.

i wish i could have just gone straight to ortho.

Hi Lynnie,

I just saw this, dont really look at this section much anymore and almost forgot I posted this.

Im sorry to hear about your injury, your x ray looks very similar to mine, if I can dig mine up ill post it as well. Now please take into consideration I am not a doctor, I have just done research on this and my knowledge is based off that and my own injury.

That being said, I personally dont think surgery is necissary for most AC separations and they can heal just fine naturally in fact most of the time healing faster. Surgery is for the more severe cases when the joint has moved completely or if you have a vanity issue regarding your collar bone.

The best thing you can do right now in the beginning of the injury is rest and try to stretch it as much as possible to keep and rebuild your ROM. I really dont think surgery is going to help you any more then letting it heal naturally. Which will take a lot of time and patience. It took me about 6 months to return to upper body exercises and activities in the weight room.

Check out those links in one of my above posts for stretches and rehab exercises. You will get ROM back fairly quickly in regards to how long it will take for you to get your full strength back.

its now march 2009 and I have no pain with my injury, while it is still visibile sometimes, working out and developing my Traps certainly helps, you can see in my avatar you cant really tell I have had a separated shoulder. The only time I can honestly say it bothers me is when something is directly applied to the bump above it and puts pressure on it where the separation occured. Like for example carrying a piece of wood over my shoulder. In which case Ill just use my left shoulder.

Like I said im no doctor, but I would advise you to look more into this injury yourself and figure out what you want to do. I personally feel the surgery will only take the "bump" away. I would say let it heal naturally if you can live with the bump being there.

Hope everything goes well and good luck!

Lynnie


 Hello NmOney34 and everyone else! I to have a grade 3 shoulder seperation...a severe grade 3 my doc says.
 

 

Here's my story...I am female, age 45, very fit and active with great upper body strength. I do not go to the gym or lift weights, as my gym is in my backyard. I have horses and work very hard keeping up my property. On Feb. 10, I took a fall off my 5 year old mare and thus...my seperation. I got back on the horse and rode her back to the barn, put the saddle and bnridle away, and I KNEW I had done some major damage. I am 22 days now into the injury and saw the bone specialist again yesterday. He does not push for surgery in grade 3 seperations, but in my case, if I want to be able to lift any weight..ie-bales of hay and feed and saddles.....surgery is advisable..! BUT, I too, have no insurance. I have no idea what the surgery costs. He wants me back in 3 more weeks (6 week point) to see if I have developed any signifigant scar tissue so I can begin rehab excersises. Until then, he said I can do small circles while hanging my arm down in front of me while sitting in a chair, finger walks up wall, and small streches behind my back with arm down.    I can not afford the surgery, although the steel plate on top of replaced ligiments sounds like my best option for full ROM and strength. If I don't have the surgery all I will have is scar tissue holding things together. Is there hope for me???? Your optomism and advice is very encouraging. My horses are my passion as your weight lifting is to you. But I think my ability to load and sling bales of hay around are over unless I have the surgery---wich I would also rather not got thru if I can help it.

Oh, and how do I post a profile pic?

 

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

Thanks so much for the reply NmOney !
 I was beginning to wonder if this was a "no girls allowed" forum...LOL.  I don't have a problem with the bump being there....I can't see it unless I look in the mirror and I'm not all about vanity anyway. I rest when I know I have exhausted the muscles and ice often, it feels good. Today I cried with joy when I finger walked up the wall and was able to bring my elbow past my shoulder without pain! I am taking it slow and listening to my body. But, I had it in my head that I was not going to ever be able to do that without surgery! I tried to flex my bicep (which is beginning to soften) and I really had to concentrate to do that. It's like my brain couldn't make the connection to that muscle. It hurt a little too when I made it. I guess I just wanted to know it was still there. I am right handed thank goodness!  March 10th will be my 4 week point and I know I have to keep reminding myself to take it slow. I will keep the six month goal in mind and have decided not to go with the surgery. Although the nerve endings under the skin where the bump is aggravate me sometimes...like a burning feeling. Did you have that too? Will it go away? My bump is seems really high. Prolly because I am a 140lb woman,heh? It looks like I am shrugging on the injured side but I am not.
                                                                            

I will keep you updated on my progress if that's ok. Being able to talk to someone who has survived this injury without surgery is so helpfull. Thanks so much...oh and I printed out those excersises to share with my doc. I see him again on the 24th to let him know what I have decided to do.
Lynnie

good for you.

Yeah it will take some time and I mean a lot of time. Just be patient with it and just get into the habit of every day stretching and doing those exercises every now and then.

When you are able to go back to normal work your body will take some time but your muscle memory will take effect and you will get back to where you were in no time. 6 Months was a long time for me, as I like being an active person for the most part and I pushed myself to get back in the gym, unfortunately even when I could perform those upper body exercises I had to start low and slow, so be prepared for that too.

I think you'll be fine with out the surgery and it sounds like things are going pretty well for you so far. You are in a better boat then me, mine was my right shoulder and im right handed, haha...man did that suck.

yeah keep me posted and feel free to ask any questions

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

I also separated my shoulder. I play softball weekly. This past tuesday,on a grounder hit to SS, i decided to step on second and throw to first for a double play as i have done so many times over the years, however, this time there was a different outcome. The baserunner slide awkwardly into second, catipulting me up 6-8 feet in the air and i landed on the point of my left shoulder.
When i got to the hospital and had x-rays i overheard the doctors talking and one said to the other that is the worst separation ive seen in a long time...long story short, friday AM i had surgery to reconstruct the shoulder.
If you have insurance, surgery is the way to go to insure that you will heal properly with no deformed appendages...

yeah. Surgery is required to make sure you dont have any "bumps"

other then that it heals just fine naturally and in some cases heals faster then when surgery is done. But its basically just surgery for aesthetic purposes unless of course the separation was a grade 4-5.

Glad to hear your ok though.

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

my ortho at NYU wouldnt go as far as saying it was a grade 4 or 5, but categorized it as 3+....im 35, i play hockey, softball, golf and have 2 young sons. Between those facts and the constant tweeting in my ear by my wife and mother i just caved in and had the surgery right away.  Once i heard from the doctor that 6-9 months from now it might be determined that surgery is the proper course of action it was an easy decision to do it now and have the pain and discomfort overlap in the shortest timespan possible.
im 5 days removed from surgery and i already feel siginificantly better. i dont plan on hitting the links anytime soon, but atleast i can sit/lie in relative comfort....