Hi! So I am a serious competitive swimmer. I've been swimming since I was little (over a decade by this point) and I had never had any shoulder pain until this March. It was the end of my season and we were tapering down for NCAA's and all of the sudden my shoulder starting hurting more and more everday. Swimming backstroke caused the most pain (kind of a problem since I am a backstroker) and it got to the point where I couldn't take a stroke of backstroke without being in agony. I also couldn't sleep on that side. I took a lot of aleve and swam through it b/c I needed to be able to race at NCAA's. Once I stopped training backstroke the pain was less acute and more tolerable. I thought that with some time off it would go away. However, even with 2 full weeks of no swimming something still didn't feel right. As time has gone on (very minimal off season training) I've developed extreme tightness in my pec and all across the top of my back and neck.
I went to a sports doc at home and they did an MR arthrogram and diagnosed me with a Labral tear (he said it was a slight tear) and some impingement. My doc said that he thinks some of the pain I am experiencing could be related to the way my back and shoulder muscles have developed after so many years in the pool; but if that was the case it seems strange that my shoulder would all of the sudden start hurting like this. Anyway, he said that he doesn't think I need surgery at this point and I should be able to resolve the problem with physical therapy. I'm just worried that once I get back to serious training (4-5 hours and 12,000+yards a day in the pool plus dryland) it will just start hurting again and it will affect my season.
Does anyone know anything about/experienced this kind of problem? Especially serious athletes or swimmers? My hope was that I could resolve this over the summer so I would be ready to go once my college seasons starts up in the end of August. I was a 6 time All American this past season as a freshman so oviously I feel a certain amount of pressure to follow up on that with a great sophomore season. I have my first PT apptment on Monday but any advice or personal anecdotes would be great appreciated!
Parents
Former Member
Just an additional though about jordangregory's comment about bedside manner. Probably the nicest Ortho guy I have ever met was an abysmal Surgeon. Don't go with the guy or gal you like the most. Make them produce some empirical results for you. Questions to ask. How many of these problems do you fix each year? What percentage of your patients are athletes? Who cares if he returns a desk jockey back to work. What are your athletes return to competition rates? How many of them do you have to operate on multiple times? You want the one who does a high number and can tell you his/her results readily. Believe me the GOOD ones keep track and are not shy about telling you their numbers. If one of them gets huffy when pressed run don't walk away from the office. Lastly, if you can make a connection with an OR nurse or scrub tech that works with these guys that is the golden ticket. Perhaps an Anesthesia provider if you know one. Those folks know the score in the OR.
Regards
Spudfin
Just an additional though about jordangregory's comment about bedside manner. Probably the nicest Ortho guy I have ever met was an abysmal Surgeon. Don't go with the guy or gal you like the most. Make them produce some empirical results for you. Questions to ask. How many of these problems do you fix each year? What percentage of your patients are athletes? Who cares if he returns a desk jockey back to work. What are your athletes return to competition rates? How many of them do you have to operate on multiple times? You want the one who does a high number and can tell you his/her results readily. Believe me the GOOD ones keep track and are not shy about telling you their numbers. If one of them gets huffy when pressed run don't walk away from the office. Lastly, if you can make a connection with an OR nurse or scrub tech that works with these guys that is the golden ticket. Perhaps an Anesthesia provider if you know one. Those folks know the score in the OR.
Regards
Spudfin
