Odd shoulder injury...PLEASE HELP

[IronG]

Guys i need some help. I want to know if anyone has had a shoulder injury similar to this. A couple months ago i somehow injured my left shoulder while lifting...i personally believe that it was injured while doing extremely heavy dumbell presses and i let the dumbell in my left hand come way too far down which i guess caused my shoulder to hyperextend. I did not realize at that time that i had hurt my shoulder b/c i was still able to lift with pretty much no problem....but over time the pain in my left shoulder became greater and greater when i would do my heavy benching and military pressing. Those are the only two movements that cause me great pain. I have been to see two different doctors and have been going to physical therapy for a month now and it does not seem to be helping at all...in fact it my shoulder seems to be getting worse. I havent done any upper body lifting in 2 1/2 months now and that has been hard as hell for me to deal with. The doctors arent really sure what is exactly wrong with my shoulder...they just continue to tell me that i am to do no upper body lifting at all. I recently had an MRI done b/c one of the doctors highly reccomended that i have one done. I should get the results of the MRI sometime next week. My left shoulder does not hurt when i am not doing heavy presses but needless to say it still bothers me. I have had x-rays done and they look fine, however, my shoulder still feels like it is somehow out of place and i can kind of snap it back and forth. Lifting anything laterally does not give me any trouble, BUT WHEN I PUT MY LEFT HAND ON MY STOMACH WITH MY FOREARM PARALLEL TO THE GROUND I CAN PUSH (SLIDE) MY LEFT SHOULDER BACK MUCH FURTHER THAN MY RIGHT SHOULDER AND I GET THIS EXTREME LOOSE STRETCHING FEELING AND IT CAUSES A LOT OF PAIN....I THEN HAVE TO KIND OF PULL MY SHOULDER BACK UP IN A FAST MOTION TO GET IT TO SNAP INTO A MORE COMFORTABLE POSITION. And like i said, i cannot do any heavy pressing movements such as any kind of benching or military pressing b/c of the pain it causes in my left shoulder. I dont understand why the doctors cant figure out what is wrong. It has already been determined that nothing is wrong with the bones...and its funny b/c my shoulder feels even more unstable after a month of physical therapy on it. Has anyone had a similar shoulder problem and if so how did you fix it???? Thanks for any help...im pretty desperate here.

[Buff_Daddy]

It's good you got the MRI, thats the only thing that can tell you whats happening really... hopefully it could just be a strained capsule or something... i have what you were describing and the accident also happened in shoulder press... it got much worse with time and i found out i have a SLAP lesion, which can only be fixed surgically... anyway, you'll have to wait for the MRI results.

[IronG]

thanks for your help Buff Daddy.... but what is a SLAP lesion?

[BernieD]

yea...this sounds like something more serious, unfortunately. Since overhead pressing caused it/is painful, it's probably at least an AC injury or maybe a SLAP lesion like Buff said.

One thing I could recommend, beyond what you're already doing, is to search for posts by "Nainoa" (think that's the name) on this board. He knows a lot about more serious shoulder injuries.

Also, the article in my sig is something I wrote recently. It probably won't help you much at all cuz it's geared more towards RC injuries, but maybe you'll find some useful exercises in there (especially for when rehabbing). In it, I rave about using cables for doing all the differeent rotations, but lately I've been more of a fan of a dumbbell variety. But that's probably more waaaay down the road for you, since many things cause pain (if I had to guess, probably even trying to stretch the shoulder, eh?)

Good luck on the MRI results

[IronG]

thanks for the help guys, but i think i injured it doing heavy dumbell bench presses, not dumbell shoulder presses. I was working chest when the injury occured and was not doing a shoulder workout. Im sorry, i guess i should have clarified more how the injury occured......anyway thanks for the help and info.