My Rotator Cuff Injury

The latest injury I've picked up is a torn rotator cuff. It happened a month back. While I was rushing up the stairs in Mumbai, where I had travelled for work, I tripped and fell forward and landed heavily on my outstretched shoulders - as if I were doing a push up on the stairs. My left shoulder let out a popping sound, and I knew I was in trouble. The pain wasn't delibitating, so, I ignored it for two days (in hindsight RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation - would've helped in those two days immediately after the injury). The day after I landed in Bangalore, I visited my orthapaedic doctor and he diagnosed the problem as a rotator cuff injury.

The rotator cuff is a group of four tendons and muscles that surround the shoulder joint. They connect the bone of the upper arm with the shoulder blade and the collar bone. It is a complicated joint that supports the whole range of motions of the shoulder joint. When a tendon gets damaged here, mobility of the shoulder gets severely affected. There is a throbbing pain that is difficult to locate. It typically originates at the shoulder joint and runs down the outer part of the upper arm. Lifting your arm above the head becomes extremely painful.

Since this area is very cartilaginous, there is limited blood supply to the joint. Hence, an injury to this region takes a long time to heal. From the literature I've read, I believe it takes two months on average for a mild rotator cuff injury to fully heal. My doctor advised me to rest my arm, stop doing exercises of the upper body and give the affected area an oil massage everyday. The oil massage is to generate heat near the joint and improve blood circulation to the area. I neglected the oil massage during the first few weeks, because I didn't know the significance of it. But after figuring out the blood circulation theory, I've been religiously massaging my shoulder and there's been a marked improvement ever since. Many people who've been through such injuries don't know of this theory about blood circulation and tend to give cock and bull stories about why shoulder injuries take so long to heal. After hearing a whole bunch of such stories with exasperation, I did my research and found a seemingly plausible explanation that I thought I'd share with the rest of you out there.

A shoulder injury is extremely frustrating because it severly impedes your fitness and sports routine. I've stopped gymming and playing cricket and tennis for a month now. By the looks of it, it would take another month before a full recovery. Sigh.....if only I'd walked my way up those stairs in Mumbai.

ps: There is loads of online literature on the subject. The following link is a good place to start http://orthopedics.about.com/od/rotatorcuff/tp/rotatorcuff.htm .