Injury

Been off sailing for a 6weeks now, the result of a shoulder injury while sailing in overpowered conditions. Been to see a phisiyo and my doctor, ultra sound test shows a small tear and infamation in my supraspinatus, stangely the damage is in my shoulder but the pain is down my arm. Im waiting for the doc to come back from hols, im hoping he says it will mend in time as i dont really fancy a quartazone injection or surgery for that matter, just doesnt seem to be getting any better,

If youve had a similar experience id like to know how long it took before you managed to get back on the water

i had a similar injury and was booked in for an opp, i'm not handing out medical advice, the way it looks to me is you tare your tendon and that restricts the movement in your shoulder and i'm sure that causes a frozen rotor cuff and limits the rotation i think

That's a bad deal Lee. You're just going to have to wait and see what happens I'm afraid. It's not likely you'll find a directly analogous situation in someone else's experience. My frayed Labrum morphed into frozen shoulder, but it never prevented me from sailing (though I certainly couldn't swim - hmm...). Lets hope you can get back on the water before winter.

DAM, Went to see a phisiyo straight away. The first week i couldn do anything with my arm, i even had to get someone to drive my van back after. AFter that week i gained some movement back albiet rather painfull, especially in the mornings. I had improvment in that first week but none since then. Im not so worried about the lack of sailing anymore im more worried about work. Been trying to keep use of my arm to a minimum, and i have been doing the excercises given to me by the phisiyo but i cant see any progress as of yet. I was advised after the cortizone injection they would be able to do some 'deep tissue repair work' not sure what that is but i hope it helps.

Ian, typical what a windy month its been, i just hope we have some wind this winter

Pierrec, It was a pretty full on session. We had the "green isand race' think it was
24 miles? around 20 knots of wind. Had a big stack about half way through where i caused the damage. Up till then i was only doing really short sessions

Qldnacra, after reading your post i should just just 'man up' and take two pain killers and then carry on trying forwards.

Don't "man up" unless a GOOD physician tells you it's ok or you might do more damage or slow the process. What i did was didn't everything they told me but added about 20% more or pushed about 20% harder if you know what i mean because they always seem to allow a bit of leeway. One thing i found really helped ALOT was they gave me this piece of flat rubber about 150mm wide and about 750-800mm long. You tie it to a door handle at one end and it gathers up then you grab the other end and stand 90 degrees to the door when it's closed and put your elbow against you waist with your fist pointing straight forward and try and pull the rubber across in front of you and then slowly let your arm move back to the starting position resisting the pull of the rubber. I used to do this up to 8 times a day starting at about 5 minutes and increasing as i could. You also do the same thing while kneeling so the pull comes from more of a 45 degree angle. It hurt pretty bad while doing it but always felt much better afterwards and gets the rotation and movement back into your shoulder. There is different colour rubber which has different amounts of elasticity. Black is the strongest and the one i used but there is also blue and red which stretch easier. I hope you can understand what i'm trying to describe it was the thing that helped me the most by far. One other thing to try is laying on your side with the bad shoulder facing up and lay your arm straight along your side then lift it up away from your side starting with small and slow movements and increasing the range of movement as you can. This will make sure your shoulder doesn't get restricted movement or seize totally in that range of movement. It increases the strength of your muscles along the top of your shoulder and try doing stand up push ups against a wall and increase your lean angle as you get stronger until you end up down on the floor in normal push up position.
This is some of the exercises i did and may not be suitable for you and i'm not a doctor or physio but a shoulder is a shoulder and if the doc says it's ok they are the main ones that got me going again. They told me i wouldn't be able to do much for at least 12 months and even then i would have to take it easy. I said no way i'm doing the ride in 6 months or so they told me i had no chance. That pushed me to prove them wrong which i did big time. Maybe they were using reverse psychology but whatever the case it worked. My physio was pretty amazed at my recovery time but i had a goal and i put in the hard yards alot of the time with tears in my eyes but it payed off. Shoulder injuries REALLY REALLY hurt but let the pain be a guide of the maximum you can take then go just a little further each time don't let it stop you because it will seize and you may never get full use back again and lastly don't take pain killers before you exercise your shoulder or else you won't feel it if your doing something that is wrong. There will be pain but you need to recognise when that pain is "wrong" pain if you know what i mean. Good luck