Shoulder dislocation, how long?

[dannyjgolf]

Hey,

 

Have dislocated before, reinjured last night :S it came out and went back in. It wasnt a massive one, just tender around the joint etc. Anyone had this happen before? if so how long did it take to play again? i worked with my physio today and trying to get an 8 day turn around (cool) just wondering what info is around. cheers

 

(it was the left shoulder and im right handed )

[TheHomez]

Hey,

 

Have dislocated before, reinjured last night :S it came out and went back in. It wasnt a massive one, just tender around the joint etc. Anyone had this happen before? if so how long did it take to play again? i worked with my physio today and trying to get an 8 day turn around just wondering what info is around. cheers

 

(it was the left shoulder and im right handed )

 

Sorry to hear about your shoulder injury.

 

I thought I'd chime in here and help you out because I am a 2nd year medical student and we just did clinical shoulder evalutation. If your shoulder keeps dislocating it might be due to a rotater cuff tear. What you are describing, that it pops in and out, is called subluxation and that can be due to many things, but mainly a rotater cuff injury. If you injured your cuff then the best thing is definitely to have it evaluated by an orthopaedic surgeon. Unfortunately, cuff tears and injuries take quite some time to heal depeneding on the severity of the tear/injury. But if you do not get it checked out and it turns out you do have a tear, you can be doing more damage to yourself which may limit you later on. So the best thing for you to do would be to get it checked out and your doctor could then tell you your recovery time and take the necessary steps to get you better. On the positive side you could just have some tendinitis, bursitis, etc which can more easily be corrected.

 

If you would like more info on the shoulder and rotator cuff injuries read below. But I do want to say that I don't recommend you do any of the maneuvers they talk about on yourself because you can end up hurting yourself more. Use them as a frame of reference to see if you think your injury fits the classical rotator cuff tear description.

 

Good luck and hope you can get back out on the course soon (cool)

 

(from: http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000515/3079.html )

Evaluating the Rotator Cuff

In evaluating the rotator cuff, the patient's affected extremity should always be compared with the unaffected side to detect subtle differences in strength and motion. A key finding, particularly with rotator cuff problems, is pain accompanied by weakness. True weakness should be distinguished from weakness that is due to pain. A patient with subacromial bursitis with a tear of the rotator cuff often has objective rotator cuff weakness caused by pain when the arm is positioned in the arc of impingement. Conversely, the patient will have normal strength if the arm is not tested in abduction.1

Figure 4

FIGURE 4. Infraspinatus/teres minor examination. The patient attempts to externally rotate the arms against resistance while the arms are at the sides and the elbows are flexed to 90 degrees.

 

The supraspinatus can be tested by having the patient abduct the shoulders to 90 degrees in forward flexion with the thumbs pointing downward. The patient then attempts to elevate the arms against examiner resistance (Figure 3). This is often referred to as the "empty can" test.

 

Next, with the patient's arms at the sides, the patient flexes both elbows to 90 degrees while the examiner provides resistance against external rotation (Figure 4). This maneuver is used to evaluate the function of the infraspinatus and teres minor muscles, which are mainly responsible for external rotation.

 

Subscapularis function is assessed with the lift-off test. The patient rests the dorsum of the hand on the back in the lumbar area. Inability to move the hand off the back by further internal rotation of the arm suggests injury to the subscapularis muscle.2 In one study, the investigators noted that only a few of the patients with confirmed subscapularis ruptures actually demonstrated a positive result on the lift-off test; the remainder could not complete the test because of pain.3

 

A modified version of the lift-off test is useful in a patient who cannot place the hand behind the back. In this version, the patient places the hand of the affected arm on the abdomen and resists the examiner's attempts to externally rotate the arm.

[dannyjgolf]

Hey thanks for the reply, the shoulder itself doesnt just pop out lol i fell off a ladder last night looking for a thing in the roof :S haha so stupid. it came out on the way down as i hit the man hole then went back in when i hit the ground. Visited my ortho surgeon today and got an x ray and mri- MRI was a ok and the x ray showed no fractures etc....so now its just a matter of waiting and seeing how it goes with the correct physio. I know it is normally around a 3 to 6 week injury but the dislocation was not a "large one" ... saying that it has only been 22 hours since the injury and i have already gone from 0% range of movement to about 85% with joint/ligament pain, which is to be expected from the stretching and pulling that goes on in a dislocation etc....