What’s wrong with my shoulder? After completing two days of painting I went for a well deserved surf at my local. I had’nt had a surf for a couple of weeks and it was a smooth 3’. Surfed for about 90 minutes. Next morning I could not raise my arm above chest height for an hour or more. After a few days it felt better so I had another surf,did’nt last long though as it started aching. I iced it that night, next day the whole tricep area was covered in a huge bruise, the bicep became bruised the next day. Whats happening? the doctor gave me anti-inflammatories and booked me for an Ultrasound, but I have’nt been able to get in yet, anyone any ideas or had a similar problem?
could be a biceps tendon tear or slip. any time that your arm is constatnly above your head like that it can cause problems. you might have agrivated it while painting and the surfing is probably what did you in. the biceps tendon fits into a small groove in your shoulder. but it really could be any number of things. but i would be willing to bet its a tear from all of the bruising that has happpened
Ditto what turbo posted. If you have bruising you know you have bleeding. Sounds like something you should not put off. Get the ultrasound. Mike
You tore a muscle, that’s why there’s bruising (bleeding at the tear site, possible tricept, deltoid, or maybe your supraspinatus (rotor cuff). As long as you can move full range-of-motion you’ll probably be alright, BUT, it’s going to take awhile to heal so DON"T PUSH IT. or you’ll re-injure it. Figure on 4-6 weeks minimum.
Good luck, Ice is nice, Rest is best.
the one thing that confuses me is that when you tear a muscle belly it hurts and your going to know that it happened. a full muscle tear is something that doest happen unless you over load the muscle in a single action, or if you have had a pretty serious injury in the past that has left you with a partialy torn muscle. and then a repitive action could casue those last few tendons to finaly tear. it sounds like from the post that it wasnt a sudden burst of pain but more of a repative injury. which leads me to believe that the later is instance. also it has to be a bicep or tricep becasue dead blood that is leaked out from a muscle isnt going to travel very far. definetly go see the doctor
What’s happened is that after two day of painting, probably alot of shoulder to head high arm movment, the muscles is the shoulder get " wrung-out" of blood alot, basically oxygen starving the muscle tissues so they can’t recover quicky, making them weak and prone to tendonitis, tears for awhile. Push muscles in this condition hard and you end up with problems. i,e swimmer’s shoulder, bursitis, rotor cuff problems. This is why correct paddling techinque is so important to avoid this “wringing-out” of the muscles. The bicept being one, but also the infraspinatus, supraspinatus, serratus, etc.
G’day Bargearse
Recently had a similar problem but without the bruise. Anti inflams didn’t totally fix it and after two weeks i had an ultrasound done and it showed up some calcification on the bone (part of the ageing process although I’m still in denial about that). The doc said the condition was calcified tendonitis (or something like that) which basically means that I’ve injured the muscle and it has swollen up and the calcification on the bone is aggravating tissue. Short of not moving your arm it won’t heal by itself. Had a cortisone shot in the shoulder, went surfing two days later - life is sweet again.
I have the same shoulder problems (no bruising though). I’ve had the problem ever since I had mono two years ago. Both of my shoulders start burning within the first 2 mins of my session. I’ve been to the physical therapist and he couldn’t help (just said take a break from surfing… yeah right)… I’ve tried muscle conditioning with the resistance band… didn’t help… I’ve tried stretching before and after my sessions… still doesn’t help.
What’s the “correct” paddling technique? I’ve noticed that if I paddle by bringing my hands into my board before reaching up, my shoulders don’t start burning quite as early (as opposed to the wide swinging paddle). The problem is that I lose a lot of drive with this technique.
Is cortizone really the only permanent fix? None of my buds have this problem at all.
Check out the "Paddling: thread that was going on a few weeks ago for info. on paddling technique.
Cortisone shots are not a permanent fix for serious shoulder problems since all they do is reduce inflammation. They do not fix tears, calcification, bone spurs. Shots can often resolve minor problems like bursitis and tendonitis. Cortisone will reduce the inflammation allowing some painfree movement but what usually happens is you’ll go right back to doing whatever it was causing the pain in the first place and it will return . You’ll get another shot and the cycle continues. In fact, too many cortisone shots too often can weaken the tendons/muscles leading to serious tears.
Find out what’s wrong and fix it. Look up shoulder problems in the archives.
Be advised shoulder problems can be a real bitch to get rid of if you wait to long to fix em’ Took me three years to resolve shoulder tendonitis from weight lifting. Couldn’t surf for a year.
excatly true scgary a cortisone shot is a temporary thing and it defiently can have an adverse effect after long time usage. i am really curious to see if the guy had an all ready existing injury before this happened. i swam competively for ten years before a miss treated shoulder injury slowed down my times, and ended my college carrer fortuanetly i am still able to surf but shoulder injuries really cant be taken lightly, especially since shoulder rotation is really the biggest key to surfing. unless your surfing jaws or mavs or some other place like that.