I had the misfortune to tear my left rotator cuff about twelve months ago. I knew that I had done something but like most of us had no idea what my rotator cuff was until I injured it. It was only when I had that I started to take an interest in things and research all about shoulders to try to find out what had gone wrong with mine. It was during my research that I found out about the torn rotator cuff exercises that helped to fix my bad shoulder.
I had managed to tear the supraspinatus which is the tendon that runs through the acromion which is a channel of bone at the top of your shoulder before connecting to the head of the humerus. Because I had torn it, it became inflamed and when it got inflamed it started to get pinched or impinged by the bone. From then on each time I raised my arm I got a painful reminder of my injury and things just got worse as the bone gradually wore away at my tendon.
Showering, getting dressed, reaching for anything, all became painful. Driving became next to impossible. When it was at its worst I was maxed out on painkillers just to function. I could not sleep on my bad shoulder and was getting really fed up with the whole situation.
My doctor referred me to a specialist who after trying steroid injections for a couple of months, without any success, advised me that surgery was the best way forward. The aim was to cut away a small piece of bone to release the trapped tendon and allow it to heal.
In the meantime I had been carrying on my research into rotator cuff tears and problems and had discovered that a lot of injuries are treated with exercise. The first thing I needed to do was to give my shoulder a complete rest. I was lucky in this in that I have an office job so it was firly easy to make some adjustments to the layout of my desk to sort out work. I stopped driving and asked for help whenever I needed to do something that was potentially painful.
I started taking anti-inflammatory drugs as regular as clockwork every four hours and within a few weeks my shoulder had started to calm down. My friends and family were fed up with running around after me but the shoulder had begun to feel better.
Then I started some exercises focused on stretching and stabilising the rotator cuff before moving on to strengthening exercises to help build it back up.
These are only small muscles so the exercises do not use any strong resistance or weights. The heaviest weight I used was a tin of baked beans which was great because it meant that I could do the exercises at home.
Within about eight weeks my shoulder was back to normal, pain free and fully functioning. The surgery is cancelled and if you look in my living room window any evening of the week you may well see me gently lifting two tins of beans. One for each shoulder. After all, one torn rotator cuff is enough for me.About the Author:
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