Bad shoulder impeding work

[thebiggrey]

I had a bad fall the second weekend in September, and although I got checked out by the EMT and my personal doctor, I’m still dealing with pain from it. I landed face first and knocked the air right out of my chest, but had no concussion symptoms and nothing horribly out of place enough to warrant an X-ray. I have started going to the chiropractor again (always tells me to wait until the bruising goes down so he can actually work on me without causing too much pain) and he’s saying my AC joint feels off and my whole shoulder from the point to the bottom of my scapula is super tense. It makes sense, considering I probably hit this side harder, but without xrays he isn’t sure if I have a compression fracture or any other issues with the shoulder. Since I never stop working he’s worried I’m not giving the joints enough time to heal, and although we’d both like me to take time off it’s not in the agenda since I need to save up for student teaching.

He’s given me some excersises to loosen up before I go and muck 15 stalls (only responsible for this once a week now, but it seems I spend the rest of the week trying to recover from this one day!) but I’m wondering if anyone has any tricks to manage the pain while working at the barn. I take breaks when I can, but since it’s getting colder I feel better if I keep moving. And I ice/use heat as necessary, but my main issue is halfway through the work when I really feel how hard it is on my shoulder.

My shoulder and I thank you!

[Myout]

Egoscue’s book called Pain Free…has been immensely helpful for me.

[stargzng386]

I would push for some more diagnostics. I sprained an ankle and pushed through a summer of working the barn and summer camps and I now have lifelong pain that can’t be treated or fixed and it prevents me from making long drives etc. I’d go back to the Dr to figure out what it is, it’s been more than a few weeks and normal bumps and bruises would be gone and then LISTEN to any rest/rehab that’s prescribed. It’s not worth causing lifelong issues for a little extra money.

[Marla_100]

I wouldn’t be surprised if you fractured your clavicle. Falling face first and knocking the wind out of you is the common

scenario for tweaking the clavicle. I know, this happened to me. X-ray showed a totally broken clavicle w/ ends overlapping. Hospital ER just slapped a sling on me and that’s all they did. 2 yrs. later I still have pain if I used
that arm/shoulder for any physical work.

If I were you I’d get a cloth sling and use it when the shoulder or arm hurts. I’d also try to do most heavy work with
the other arm.

I used Lubrisyn (HA) for pain and it does help. Also used BOT knee brace pulled over the shoulder and sometimes
in cold weather I stuff the BOT mini blanket inside my shirt and wrap it around the shoulder. It helps also.

You may just have to learn to baby that arm/shoulder, it may never be as strong as it was before the injury.

[PNWjumper]

Sounds like maybe you separated your shoulder? That’s pretty painful and definitely takes a while to heal.

First thing, I would find another chiropractor/body worker (to use in addition to yours, not in place of).

I separated my shoulder and broke my collarbone in a fall a few years ago. Had terrible shoulder pain and the orthopedic surgeon told me “that was just how it was going to be…” (for the rest of my life). Took about 6 weeks to recover from the break/separation (but rode and worked the whole time through it). Then had super limited mobility in my shoulder for the next 2 years and couldn’t sleep comfortably…I’ve always slept on my side with one arm over my head and it kept me from sleeping on my comfortable side.

I made a comment about it to one of my horse chiro/bodyworkers 2 years after it happened, by which point I had given up ever having normal use of the shoulder again. And she said, “oh! I can help that!” She worked on me 6 times over the next 12 months and I can no longer tell which one used to be my bad shoulder. Absolutely blown away that it was that easy to get the issue fixed…just had to find someone who knew how to do it (which was not my orthopedic surgeon, nor my very talented human chiropractor).

[tollertwins]

https://coldone.com/products/shoulder-ice-compression-wrap?variant=6335589189