Shoulder impingement gone wrong

For this week's newsletter I'd like to share a story about a patient I saw several years ago for shoulder pain. 

This man (Bob) came into the clinic with a long history of shoulder pain. He noted that before getting to the clinic to see me, he saw his primary care doc first who diagnosed him with shoulder impingement and bursitis. A common approach for this is to get a cortisone injection as it helps reduce inflammation and makes the area feel better...usually.  

Bob did a standard approach advised by his doc to get 3 injections within the year to help reduce inflammation and ease pain. The first one worked well, the second one worked "OK", and the 3rd did virtually nothing for his pain.

After this common approach the doc ordered more imaging and diagnosed Bob with "necrosis of the humeral head" and said he needed a shoulder replacement at the age of 38.

Bob was shocked that he needed a shoulder replacement at 38 and asked why. The doc told him "sometimes that can happen where the steroids break down the tissue of the injection site.  Usually it causes rotator cuff tears, but your humeral head disintegrated and you need a shoulder replacement."

After all this he ended up in my clinic to help recover from a shoulder replacement at 38 years old. Unfortunately I did not meet him until after the other interventions that required him to get a shoulder replacement. 

A different standard approach for shoulder impingement and bursitis is physical therapy. If Bob had started PT from the beginning he may have been able to fix his problem, but definitely would have avoided shoulder replacement surgery as that only happened because of the injections, according to Bob's doctor and the surgeon.

This story serves as a moral to me about how some simple shoulder pain can turn into the worst of situations. By the way, Bob's original complaint before all the injections was a little pain reaching overhead and behind his back.

He could have avoided the whole process of pain and surgery if he had just addressed the underlying motion dysfunction first with physical therapy, exercise, and stretches. These invasive approaches that standard medicine takes nowadays may not be the best choice for your body. Allow the body to heal from the inside out with proper education and PT.

If you've been to PT before and it hasn't worked, it probably wasn't the right approach, it was a "cookie cutter" approach. Works for most, but not all. 

Get assessed by your local DPT today to avoid nasty stories like Bob's.

Call Jump 4 Wellness (520)415-0747 today to improve your move and get back to life.