Shoulder problems

[bacarver]

I have a question.
I started having anterior shoulder pain a couple days ago and I have no idea why. I've lifted hand weights since 2002 and my routine is reasonable with the heaviest weight at 10 pounds each for a total of 20 pounds.
It hurts when I comb my hair more than anything. My shoulder aches and "burns" even when I'm just sitting. It seems to pop inside the joint at times when I raise and rotate my shoulder. I still have full range of motion.
I won't be lifting weights or doing push ups for awhile till this heals whatever it is.
Is this descriptive of a muscle tear for those of you who have had one?
Gosh, I'm falling apart.
Thanks - Barb

[ZenSojourner]

Here is a list of the symptoms of some common shoulder injuries:

http://www.freemd.com/shoulder-injury/symptoms.htm

But a lot of the symptoms are virtually identical for sometimes quite different injuries. Basically it almost boils down to "yes my shoulder hurts".

You'll need to see a doc to tell for sure what's going on, possibly an X-ray or even an MRI might be needed to diagnose the actual problem.

BTW, the books suggested to me in this thread on trigger points and frozen shoulder got here yesterday, so I'm hoping I've got something that will help me now.

[OakLeaf]

Just to add something into the mix, I've become very conscious that my sleep habits were aggravating the muscle imbalances in my shoulders.

Now, I make sure that if I'm on my back, my hands are palms up (externally rotating the humeri) and if I'm on my side, my elbows are even with or behind my spine (preventing the shoulders from collapsing anteriorly).

[ZenSojourner]

Apparently my habit of leaning on my elbow to use my laptop in bed has caused an ulnar nerve entrapment.

Guess I'm going to have to get the back room set up for my computer right away, LOL!

[Biciclista]

frozen shoulder was the most dramatic skeletal=muscular problem i've ever had.
I tweaked it doing a butterfly stroke the one and only time i'd ever been in Hawaii. it was irritating, but no big deal and i pretty much forgot about it until it suddenly got so bad that I could not lift my arm. A sudden move would produce pain so bad that more than once I collapsed. The reason for the severe pain is adhesions that form from inflammation during the healing process. what you need to do is work those free, which hurts!
Since you are on a limited budget, you might look into yoga or pilates. Of course if your shoulder did not repair right from the original injury, you might still have problems, but frozen shoulder is, in a way, the body's way of protecting itself from further harm.
You need to find a way to work on your range of motion. If you are near a training hospital, you might have a chance to get student therapists to massage and work the sore limb. It can be done, because I did it.
The most baffling thing about it was the reactions to it by the medical community. There was a lot of head scratching, as I asked some friends who were doctors. They acted like it was a rare and unknown ailment. They had no sure cure for it. Since I have medical insurance, I went immediately to a first rate orthopedic surgeon. He had xrays and some kind of scan done, where they inject dye into the shoulder socket. He mentioned that sometimes that dye shot did the trick, as if it were a trick. It didn't, and it hurt like hell! however, that's when i got the diagnosis. The Dr told me to do what I could, he was not of the school of putting you under and ripping it all loose because he said sometimes it froze right back over again. I asked him for a prescription for physical therapy, which i went to even when my insurance ran out (ouch, that was expensive) because I could see it was helping. Then I used my acupuncture benefit and used that up, found a great acupuncture dr who knew right where I needed massage the most. It hurt a lot, but she was helping me with those adhesions.
When i ran out of that benefit too, I continued with the exercises and now today, a few years later, every now and then I'll get a pain while doing something and I can tell
it's an adhesion and I try to work it through but now I have 98% range of motion, you'd have to look really hard to see the diff between my two arms.

[Becky]

Just to add something into the mix, I've become very conscious that my sleep habits were aggravating the muscle imbalances in my shoulders.

Now, I make sure that if I'm on my back, my hands are palms up (externally rotating the humeri) and if I'm on my side, my elbows are even with or behind my spine (preventing the shoulders from collapsing anteriorly).

That's really interesting, Oakleaf. I've often wondered why my neck and shoulders sometimes hurt after sleeping on my side. I'll have to give this a try!

[Biciclista]

Just to add something into the mix, I've become very conscious that my sleep habits were aggravating the muscle imbalances in my shoulders.

Now, I make sure that if I'm on my back, my hands are palms up (externally rotating the humeri) and if I'm on my side, my elbows are even with or behind my spine (preventing the shoulders from collapsing anteriorly).

oh gosh, me too!!! I do more damage at night while sleeping to my neck than any other time.