Shoulder Impingement

Former Member
Former Member
Looking for some of your experience with shoulder injuries. I am 26 year old male and have swam masters for years, and injured my shoulder about 5 months ago while training vigorously for the 200 IM and 200 free. I developed it from backstroke because i was not rotating body enough and over strained left shoulder. MRI showed impingement and tendonitus, did 8 weeks of PT religiously, but still have issues and cannot swim without residual pain. I definitely cannot compete anymore and haven't swam but a couple times this year. Doctor says he can scope it and clean the bursitus out. I think he's offering arthroscopic decompression. Anyone have any experience with roughing it through shoulder injuries or anyone have any shoulder surgeries? Were they successful?
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Looking for some of your experience with shoulder injuries. I am 26 year old male and have swam masters for years, and injured my shoulder about 5 months ago while training vigorously for the 200 IM and 200 free. I developed it from backstroke because i was not rotating body enough and over strained left shoulder. MRI showed impingement and tendonitus, did 8 weeks of PT religiously, but still have issues and cannot swim without residual pain. I definitely cannot compete anymore and haven't swam but a couple times this year. Doctor says he can scope it and clean the bursitus out. I think he's offering arthroscopic decompression. Anyone have any experience with roughing it through shoulder injuries or anyone have any shoulder surgeries? Were they successful? I'm not sure that we had the same injury but the procedure that was offered to me was a subacromial decompression. The doc wasn't wild about doing it but said if I was insistent, he would oblige. I wound up sticking with PT and it eventually resolved. This occurred back in 2004 or 2005 so my memory of the specific course of recovery is cloudy, though I seem to recall that I could swim in a limited fashion after 2 to 3 months and it took more than 6 months for me to really be pain-free and not having to baby the shoulder. I will say that my injury seemed to heal more quickly when I stopped taking Ibuprofen, and there is some science behind that.
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  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Looking for some of your experience with shoulder injuries. I am 26 year old male and have swam masters for years, and injured my shoulder about 5 months ago while training vigorously for the 200 IM and 200 free. I developed it from backstroke because i was not rotating body enough and over strained left shoulder. MRI showed impingement and tendonitus, did 8 weeks of PT religiously, but still have issues and cannot swim without residual pain. I definitely cannot compete anymore and haven't swam but a couple times this year. Doctor says he can scope it and clean the bursitus out. I think he's offering arthroscopic decompression. Anyone have any experience with roughing it through shoulder injuries or anyone have any shoulder surgeries? Were they successful? I'm not sure that we had the same injury but the procedure that was offered to me was a subacromial decompression. The doc wasn't wild about doing it but said if I was insistent, he would oblige. I wound up sticking with PT and it eventually resolved. This occurred back in 2004 or 2005 so my memory of the specific course of recovery is cloudy, though I seem to recall that I could swim in a limited fashion after 2 to 3 months and it took more than 6 months for me to really be pain-free and not having to baby the shoulder. I will say that my injury seemed to heal more quickly when I stopped taking Ibuprofen, and there is some science behind that.
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