Hi Guys, A few weeks ago I started having pain in my shoulder and I thought it would go away...it was either caused by serving while playing tennis (I play 1 hr a week, every week) or while working out, I'm not really sure. Anyways, I thought it would go away as it felt like it was getting better so I continued working out and that just made the problem twice as worse as before. I kept waking up in the middle of the night because my shoulder was in so much pain, and the first few hours in the morning were sooo painful. After being tired of taking Aleve twice a day and seeing no improvement, I went to the doctor last Friday. He had me move my arm several different ways to see where it hurts and where it doesn't hurt. He says SHOULDER BURSITIS and prescribes me Naproxen (prescription version of Aleve, much stronger), says not to exercise the shoulder or put any strain on it for at least a week. Now it's Tuesday morning and my arm was so god damn sore this morning. I can sleep through the night, but I have not seen any real improvement since Friday afternoon. I might have forgotten to take the Naproxen this morning but I'm pretty sure I took it. Took an Aleve about an hour ago just in case, and feeling much better now. Anybody have any experience with this? Doc says if it doesn't get better, Cortizone is the next step, but I DONT want to do Cortizone because supposedly everybody only gets 3, and I'm only 26 which I feel is too young to play the Cortizone game. Sorry for the rant, I'm just in so much pain all the time. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks, Emile
Definitely a WebMD sorta thing to look for more opinions. You might be in for surgery and physical therapy.
sounds pretty painfull and annoyining, any pain in your sholder sucks. mabey you should see another doc or speilest for another opinion. could also be your rotatr cuff, seems thats a big problem a lot of times. I hurt mine a while back lifting, now 3 times a week i do rotator cuff exercises and it has healed up and dont bother me any more.
I had something similar. When I played football I destroyed my left shoulder and it ended up being a labrum tear ( or however you spell it) and broken clavical bone. I had shoulder reconstruction to fix it. May want to get an MRI. I had a cortizone shot as well and it sucked. The needed is a mile and a half long and they go allllll the way in with it.
stretched out ligaments and joint is common for tennis players. go get some Physical therapy for it. they will give you proper things to do that counter balance the constant serving motions
See a specialist ASAP, the sooner it is diagnosed, the sooner you can correct what's wrong, in the mean time, try an ice pack to reduce any possible internal swelling. I currently am dealing with a bum shoulder also from a previous tear(s).Don't mess with the doctor more than you have to.
Doctors usually arent so quick to prescribe medicine for something as common as shoulder pain. Then to tell you Cortizone is next, seems like hes moving very fast. If you have been playing tennis for a long time the chances are your stroke is fine, and your more likely to over stress your elbow in tennis compared to your shoulder anyway. In the gym shoulder injuries are extremely common. What movements were you doing that could equate to shoulder injury? Chances are is was a chest press, or bench press maybe, 2 most common exercises which result in shoulder injuries. I would start with a chiropractor, thats my first stop whenever I sustain an injury. Taking medicine for things like shoulder injury will subdue the paint but if there is an internal problem (pulled muscle, strain, rotator cuff) than it will absolutely come back. You need to see a chiropractor.
Wow, thanks for awesome responses everyone. I'm gonna follow the remainder of the schedule for the meds (been 5 days, only 5 days left) and then I'll see the doc for the follow-up appointment and tell him how I feel at that time. I'm going to stay away from the Cortizone shot, and I got a specialist's number that I'm going to call. I would rather resolve this naturally through physical therapy. Dave, I've been sticking to the normal routine in the gym but I think the last few tennis sessions, I pushed my shoulder too much while practicing my serve. I think that is when the pain started and then I made it worse by sticking with the exercise routine during the week while it was still fairly sore.
Have been having shoulder discomfort in both shoulders for about 3-4 weeks not but it switches from let to right shoulder from day to day or even time of day. I had a cortizone shot about 2-3 years ago for bad inflammation after doing PT and everything. going to be getting xrays and mri's done coming in the the next few weeks...starting bugging me after I went to ATL and had to carry about my laptop bag....and sleep in a hotel for a month.
I play tennis often as well and a while back I did also get injury to my rotator cuff and I improved my situation by going to physical therapy.
My shoulder would get injured due to weight training (acromioclavicular or dislocation) I’d go to the ER and they would ‘fix’ it advising me that I should see a DR to follow up. But I was young and the shoulder was ‘working’ normally so I’ll wait ‘til next time and carry on weight training. My recovery regime was rest and ice Long story short, after the 10th episode I did follow up with a DR and then had arthroscopic surgery to replace the joint, which meant no training or detailing for two months. Moral of the story, yes you are young and invincible but see a DR or physical therapist before it gets worse
Thanks for the PM, bonehead, that was very helpful. Judging by your Nickname, I would not have guessed you would be so experienced in this regard. : Just to update: the pain is decreasing slightly each day. I have been icing the shoulder down frequently, staying off of it, and continuing the medication as prescribed. The worst of the pain is when I wake up in the morning and the first few hours after that, but every day it gets ever-so-slightly better. Thanks again to everyone for their advice so far, I'll update this thread in a few more days.
