Dislocated Shoulder

carl_p

Well I've had a shocking start to the new year. Amongst other things I came off my bike last weekend on black ice and suffered a dislocation of the shoulder. Also suffered a fracture to the shoulder socket, which the physician has decided not to operate on due to the difficult access to that area of the body and my age (too old basically).

Obviously it is still extremely painful and I am likely to be a very impatient patient in easing my way back to full fitness. I'll be doing the required physio work as soon as I get the green light. I realise you must put things into perspective, but to me not being able to go to the gym or ride my bike is very frustrating.

Anyone else suffered this injury? How long did it take to get back cycling and what sort of rehabilitation exercises did you do?

Must say I will be extremely nervous on the bike from now on, knowing even a mild crash (perhaps an unclipping incident) might result in another dislocation.

random man

I feel your pain! I first dislocated my right shoulder when I was 19 (I'm 55 now) and at that age it didn't seem too long before I was back to normal. I don't remember doing any physio or exercises.
Once it's come out though it will come out easier next time as the ligaments or cartilage have stretched and don't hold it in too well.

Mine got to the point where I could put it back myself when it dislocated, probably after 4 or 5 times, and I had an operation, age 31, to fix it and I've had no problem since.
All the best, I know how much it hurts.

RichN95.

I've dislocated one or other of my shoulders 18 (or is it 19) times. All but four times, it popped straight back in again. (Once it took A&E four people and nearly an hour to put it back in though).

When you've got full movement back and there's no pain (at all), then give it another week and you'll be OK. The longest I've evet been out of action was four weeks.

Doing some weight training to bulk up the shoulders a bit made the occurrences a lot less frequent.

I don't have any permanent problems.

(I'm a hockey goalkeeper, this sort of thing comes with the territory).

carl_p

Cheers mate - certainly makes your eyes water to be sure.

I'm hoping that exercise/physio will help increase stability and get full mobility back.

At 48 this is my first serious injury so I should count myself lucky really.

Norfolk & Norwich A&E were actually very good. I'd had to smile when the nurse asked me as my arm hung at an odd angle and blood coming out of nose and chin, "on a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain are you in?"

tebbit

I did mine playing rugby when I was 22, weights and archery were the methods I used to get back to fitness.

iainf72

Ouch.

I dislocated my shoulder in 06 in a posterior style - ie, out the back. Didn't get spotted for 4 months and took some major surgery to correct. I'm pretty pain free now but have lost a lot of movement and will get arthritis eventually and require a shoulder replacement.

The guy who fixed it said if it had been spotted right away, I wouldn't had almost no problems with it, but the delay meant the bone got mangled.

Good luck anyway! Take it easy.

hugo15

Another rugby injury here. Suffered a further four dislocations, including two while sleeping and one while stretching at work. Dislocations 4 and 5 saw me black out when I popped it back in so I decided it was time to get it operated on. The guy who fixed it did a good job and it's been fine ever since with much better movement than I had pre-op.

Hope you are back on the bike soon.

carl_p

hugo15 wrote:

Suffered a further four dislocations, including two while sleeping and one while stretching at work.

OMG - I did not want to read that.

hugo15

Carl_P wrote:

hugo15 wrote:

Suffered a further four dislocations, including two while sleeping and one while stretching at work.

OMG - I did not want to read that.

Sorry.........

I had managed to rip off 25% of the "seal" that holds your arm in so that in certain positions there was nothing holding my arm in. Surgery was the only option. Wish the doctor who looked at me when I did it the first time had told me that rather than the "let's see how physio goes" approach.

StillGoing

Both my wife and I have had shoulder surgery recently. She had to have surgery following several dislocations to the point where the muscle and tendons had stretched and damage had been caused to the rotator cuff. All this meant that just reaching behind her would result in a dislocation. She was immobile completely for around six weeks and then gentle exercise. By gentle I mean using the other arm to move the damaged arm a few inches for weeks at a time. Even today she has restricted movement in the joint and could easily dislocate the joint again.

In November I had an impinged shoulder operation where they had to saw a bit of bone off that was cutting in to the tendons. I still have nowhere near good enough movement in the shoulder almost six weeks after the op. I'm taking 12 painkillers a day just to get through the day so exercise other than general movement is a no. Sleeping is irratic at best so I end up cat-napping during the day. I've got a Basso Astra sitting waiting for me that's just been built but that I haven't had a chance to ride and the break from exercise over the christmas period has not been kind. I dread the work I've got to go through again to get back to where I was before the operation. It's more frustrating because I've had two arthroscopies on one knee before and was up and at 'em back to normal within about two weeks.

Good luck with it all.