Tell me about dislocated shoulders

[swiggy]

Did mine yesterday skiing. Damaged rotator cuff too. Ski patrol guy popped it back in, was out for about 20 mins. Going to physio etc. just want to hear from others who've done it, pretty common surfing injury I think?

I haven't been out of the water for longer than a month since I was in high school (25 now). Not sure how I'm going to cope with it..

[Philshoz]

Hurts doesn't it Swiggy.

Did mine Six times. 5 skating and once finally surfing Watergate, nightmare getting in, nearly drowned!

I was about your age back then and had to have it operated on which went very well with good physio but was out of the water for twelve weeks! So take care of it, build up the strength again and all the best with it.

Do not rush it !!!

[surfrat]

ask Mark!!

[rustopher]

A few years back I had surgery for a torn labrum from an old snowboarding injury. Physio was brilliant for me. I started with passive exercise - pressing against walls etc, then graduated up to various theraband exercises, then light weights, then swimming, then mellow surfing. Was out for about 5-6 months, but the exercise meant I came back stronger than I ever was before. Basically, once the injury's recovered I think the idea is to build up the muscles so there's less pressure on the joints.

[swiggy]

Cheers. Physio thinks its just a straightforward dislocation, minimal soft tissue damage, said my shoulders were really strong and flexible and the fact I surfed so much probably helped stop it being worse. Surprisingly not that painful, just like being punched in the arm. Felt like a big relief when it went back in. 48 hours after I did it physio had me lifting my arm, with no real pain. Taking physio seriously, I want to surf when I'm 50. A month in a sling, probably 2 months out the water, then a couple of months of surfing small waves and being careful. Its summer, so no problem just surfing small stuff.

It seems that some people have constant issues after they do this, some people are fine, seems to be a 50-50 split. Hope I'm one of the latter..

Andy, I had a beer with Mark last night, I think his were worse. He surfed 5 days after initial dislocation, all sorts of damage happened there.

[Philshoz]

[quote="swiggy"]Cheers. Physio thinks its just a straightforward dislocation, minimal soft tissue damage, said my shoulders were really strong and flexible and the fact I surfed so much probably helped stop it being worse. Surprisingly not that painful,........... just like being punched in the arm. Felt like a big relief when it went back in. 48 hours after I did it physio had me lifting my arm, with no real pain. Taking physio seriously, I want to surf when I'm 50.............. quote]

I want to surf when I'm 70..(58).............mine made a full recovery with no real problems, just have to be careful when puching through waves with my mal.

Really surprised when you said it didn't hurt much, which way from the socket did the ball joint go?

[Chris F]

Might be a good time to do some physio / exercises to stabilise your shoulders as you will, without a doubt, have instabilities within your shoulders due to muscles developing unevenly; a common problem amongs surfers and climbers.

This article has some good info and exercises. Doing them is boring, but very useful for preventing injury and recurrence.

http://www.theshortspan.com/features/in ... oulder.htm

[swiggy]

Phil - Seemed to go mostly downwards and a bit forwards, my arm was hanging well down. It hurt a bit, I wouldn't say it was pleasant, but not as bad as I expected a dislocation to feel, just like a dead arm. After it had gone back in the pain was basically gone, just a slight dead arm feeling, like I had been punched in the arm, but not that hard. I'm optimistic this means that not too much damage was done, physio seems to agree. I'm soft too, so it mustn't have been that bad Other people have told me it was the most painful thing they have done. I've been in way more pain from stubbing my toe..

Chris - cheers for the link. I had already been doing some shoulder exersizes with light weights to try and balance out my shoulders, I have a few friends who have damaged rotator cuffs, might have stopped this being worse. More motivated to do a lot more in future now.

[Philshoz]

How's the shoulder coming along Swiggy?

[swiggy]

Its slowly getting better, thanks. I'm going to physio once a week, he said my sockets were fine (checked my other arm) and I'm not really prone to dislocation, it was just a fall. So if I'm super careful for a while I may be OK, crossing fingers. Probably 6 weeks til I'm back in the water if everything goes well, surfing some mellow reefs where I can avoid duckdiving and having to paddle hard, I can catch waves one armed at my usual spot I know it that well now I'm not rushing it though, I know this has the potential to be a long term problem if I fuck about..

I may be being paranoid and fearing the worst, but its my first real injury and shoulders are kind of essential to surf, at least being paranoid is motivating me do all my exercises properly. And statistics like 75% chance of doing it again for 20-something males are hardly great..

At least I can take my new boat out fishing around the islands where I live here (sheltered coast, water is 5 mins from my house) and get used to it before I venture into more exposed coastline. Look on the bright side?

So many things are hard without your right hand, I feel kind of useless haha, if I lived by myself I'd be struggling with so many basic tasks..

[Black]

So many things are hard without your right hand, I feel kind of useless haha, if I lived by myself I'd be struggling with so many basic tasks..

Toooooo much info..........