I'm putting together an article on shoulder problems for USMS Swimmer with a different slant. With your help, I hope to identify different types of typical shoulder problems swimmers encounter, symptoms, treatment, and your experience with the outcomes for these problems - a resource for swimmers who experience shoulder problems and how other swimmers have dealt with them and managed them.
If you'd like to be a part of this article, please respond to me with answers to the following questions.
1. Diagnosed name of injury and date it occurred (or how long ago it happened).
2. Initial symptoms.
3. Initial diagnosis - by self, PT, MD, other?
4. Initial treatment - as prescribed by self, PT, MD, other?
5. Additional treatment (including surgery).
6. Length of time out of the water. Please include type of training when resumed.
7. Length of time until back to previous level of training.
8. After treatment do you feel you're at the same level of training and performance as before your injury? A higher level? Have not reached previous level of training and performance.
9. Any other useful comments.
Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate your taking the time to help!
Nancy
Nancy, if i am not mistaken, i read about your shoulder travails in a recent Swimmer magazine, right?
I think one of the most important aspects of this kind of injury is attention to the psychological dimensions, especially if swimming is very important to you as a source of stress relief, competitive pride, even self definition.
I had a very hard time of it several years ago after much overuse--as Ian said, tennis serving really can aggravate things, and this on top of a 10K open water swim, then trying to do butterfly too intensely when i was back in the pool--all added to give me quite a depressing case of shoulder-itis.
I wrote about it, and sports medicine in general, in Men's Health. I don't know if this would be helpful at all to read, but you can find it here:
www.menshealth.com/.../article.do
I guess if I had to sum up the three top bits of advice, they are these:
1) realize that the vast majority of these problems get better if you give the shoulder time to rest and de-inflame. this doesn't mean putting it in a sling and not moving it at all--that makes things worse. but getting fins and taking as much weight off as possible, just letting your arm go through the motions with out actually pulling forcefully, is the way to go.
2) stay in the pool with your teammates--camaraderie is so key to the psychological well being of an athlete, and any sense of exile just makes an injury seem that much worse. if zoomers don't let you kick hard enough to keep up with your lane mates, get larger, more flexible flippers. tell yourself -- and this is true-- that you are getting a harder aerobic workout kicking fast than swimming, since the legs have so much more muscle mass than the arms and shoulders. plus your ankles will gain in flexibility. you hear it all the team: injured swimmers forced to kick for weeks or months often swim PRs once they are allowed to swim normally again.
3) surgery and elaborate therapies of one sort of another are probably necessary for traumatic injuries and some overuse injuries, but for the latter type, which the vast number of swimming shoulder problems fall into, relative rest, pt, ice, and patience will get you back. Note: patience is the hardest thing of all for me to practice, particularly when you're not really sure it's ever going to get better. I think people jump to surgery out of frustration to feel better faster, before the clock can tick away one second longer! In the long run, though, considering the time you have to rehab the surgery itself, I would bet a large chunk of surgical patients would have healed on their own faster than it takes to schedule, undergo, and heal from the surgery itself.
From back surgery to prostate removal, I think there's a groundswell of thought in parts of the medical community now that an awful lot of conditions are being overtreated by means that do not have a demonstrated record of providing more cure than harm--and all extracting money and pain from you to enrich the legions of orthopods who need to pay their dues at the country club.
Nancy, if i am not mistaken, i read about your shoulder travails in a recent Swimmer magazine, right?
I think one of the most important aspects of this kind of injury is attention to the psychological dimensions, especially if swimming is very important to you as a source of stress relief, competitive pride, even self definition.
I had a very hard time of it several years ago after much overuse--as Ian said, tennis serving really can aggravate things, and this on top of a 10K open water swim, then trying to do butterfly too intensely when i was back in the pool--all added to give me quite a depressing case of shoulder-itis.
I wrote about it, and sports medicine in general, in Men's Health. I don't know if this would be helpful at all to read, but you can find it here:
www.menshealth.com/.../article.do
I guess if I had to sum up the three top bits of advice, they are these:
1) realize that the vast majority of these problems get better if you give the shoulder time to rest and de-inflame. this doesn't mean putting it in a sling and not moving it at all--that makes things worse. but getting fins and taking as much weight off as possible, just letting your arm go through the motions with out actually pulling forcefully, is the way to go.
2) stay in the pool with your teammates--camaraderie is so key to the psychological well being of an athlete, and any sense of exile just makes an injury seem that much worse. if zoomers don't let you kick hard enough to keep up with your lane mates, get larger, more flexible flippers. tell yourself -- and this is true-- that you are getting a harder aerobic workout kicking fast than swimming, since the legs have so much more muscle mass than the arms and shoulders. plus your ankles will gain in flexibility. you hear it all the team: injured swimmers forced to kick for weeks or months often swim PRs once they are allowed to swim normally again.
3) surgery and elaborate therapies of one sort of another are probably necessary for traumatic injuries and some overuse injuries, but for the latter type, which the vast number of swimming shoulder problems fall into, relative rest, pt, ice, and patience will get you back. Note: patience is the hardest thing of all for me to practice, particularly when you're not really sure it's ever going to get better. I think people jump to surgery out of frustration to feel better faster, before the clock can tick away one second longer! In the long run, though, considering the time you have to rehab the surgery itself, I would bet a large chunk of surgical patients would have healed on their own faster than it takes to schedule, undergo, and heal from the surgery itself.
From back surgery to prostate removal, I think there's a groundswell of thought in parts of the medical community now that an awful lot of conditions are being overtreated by means that do not have a demonstrated record of providing more cure than harm--and all extracting money and pain from you to enrich the legions of orthopods who need to pay their dues at the country club.
