muscle or skeletal? serious or not?

[Fruitbat]

I hurt myself whilst mountain biking today. It felt at the time but now is very painful - so this suggests muscular. If I lift my left arm, my shoulder hurts but if I lift it using my other arm its fine - again muscular. It doesnt hurt to touch, rub or prod - though deep down I can feel a little muscle that is sore to a hard massage. It hurts basically when I do front raise motion, or when i bring my arm across my body. There is no swelling and no redness and no outward indication of injury.

I think it is a strain and maybe bruising - so I am deep-heating it and figure rest will be my friend. If its worse tomorrow maybe I will go to the doctor.

Any thoughts?

[Pete]

ICE If you've got inflammation use ice! Heat will increase the inflammation, you don't want that.
Go to a doc, you could have a separation of a rotator cuff, possible a splinter of bone in the muscle, you might have had a dislocation & suffered ligament damage etc etc.
Until you can get to a doc ice is your best bet.

[Fruitbat]

there is no inflammation whatsoever but i will check out freezer to see if there is any ice!

[fredrikw]

go see a doctor, definitely. with shoulders you never know, hopefully it isn't anything serious... and before you do that, rest and no lengths in the pool

I injuried my shoulder om christmas day, if anyone remember (http://www.veganfitness.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2385), and it still hasn't healed properly... not to scare you or anything, but rather so you'll be careful and not rush into something...

[Dave Noisy]

Not to make you suffer more by re-living the experience, but do you recall what you did to yourself? Might shed a little more light..

Oddly, my one shoulder hurts whenever i ride my mountain bike, just not used to having my arms in that position any more...

[Pete]

Fruitbat said:

there is no inflammation whatsoever but i will check out freezer to see if there is any ice!

You've brought up an important point here that a lot of people overlook.
If this is just about any soft tissue damage (there are a few exceptions). Then you will get inflamation.

As this is so important I'll give you a rought guide just so you know what's going on when you injure yourself:

Nearly every cell has a capillary running near it (VERY close it'd look like touching to the naked eye). If there is any damage to the area you can garantee that that the capillaries in that area are damaged or ruptured. This damage makes them more permiable , so factors of blood can get into the damaged area & begin the repair process & white cells can get into the area to defend it from invasion.
One problem is if you apply heat you increase the blood pressure in the capillaries in that area. For something like DOMS, stiffness because you haven't moved in a bit, or a slight twinge, this is good. It gets more blood into the area to take away lactic acid, get synovial fluid produced etc & can aid recovery from these conditions.
On the other hand increasing blood pressure on a damaged area can be dangerous. It will increase pressure on damaged tissue, increase pressure upon (a possibly) damaged joint, muscle, tendon, ligament, bone etc. Ice will slow the blood supply & lower the pressure. This will relieve any build up in pressure on the structures of the body, so giving them the best chance to heal safely without additional damage.

Sorry to harp on about this on a massive reply, but it's vital everyone understands the nature of injury & when in any doubt ICE is the way forward, not heat.

[Fruitbat]

i been to A&E this morning. There is still no swelling or outward signs of injury. They had a feel, asked me to lift my arm and asked me where things hurt and if they hurt to the touch and concluded that its just pulled/strained muscle - keep moving it, no excessvie exercise and if its no better by Monday to go to my GP. The doctor said it wasnt broken or dislocated so no point taking Xray and that if I had hurt the rotor cuff I wouldnt have the full mobility of my arm or at least not without severe pain.

So I guess I have to be patient. He said any exercise that doesnt involve my shoulder is fine so I guess I will be road-cycling, running, Xtraining lots now for at least a few days.

I will have a rest day today though!

[Pete]

Don't train 100%, give yourself some recovery energy, go about 50% until you're better, then work up slowly with anything involving shoulders.

[Fruitbat]

luckily this up-coming week is graduation week anyway so even if i had wanted to - i would have found it hard to exercise as much as normal. i am going to get very frustrated and bored i suspect but i know that the quickest way back to it, is to take it easy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[littlegirlbunny]

Its so hard to lay off training when its not part of your plan! But you are right - it is the best thing to do. Hope the shoulder gets better soon

[Fruitbat]

thanks guys for your support and advice!

my shoulder seems to be healing quite fast. Its being rested and I am eating lots of protein (whether that helps to heal hurt muscle i dont know but one assumes it does seeing as one is supposed to eat protein to help the body repair itself afer exercise!). Keeping it moving to keep it flexible as joints sieze up otherwise. Just patience and rest will see this one through - but although I rested Saturday, I cannot rest 100% more than 1 day or I will go mad so I went for a run, and now to the gym to do Xtrainer and some cycling... tomorrow i rest day again as I am travelling to grandparents anyway...

[silver]

but you missed the important point...

is the bike ok?

hope your shoulder feels better already.

just as a back up to Pete, strains, pulls anything that might cause an inflammation, ice will help, try and keep some handy when training.
(since i train trapeze where accidents do happen, it's something that's drilled into me.)
obviously not really an option on a mountain bake ride.

heat and massage are not a good idea on a traumatic injury. you're more likely to do more damage.

[Fruitbat]

for anything causing swelling i agree with teh ice - gymnastics drilled that into my head for 13 years too! But here there is no swelling at all - doctor said to apply deep-heat and use it in a non-stressful way as much as possible. The range of motion without pain is increasing by the day. I can actually get dressed now without too much difficulty!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bike is ok - just need to take it to bike shop for quick fine-tuning so front wheel no rub on brake./

[Fruitbat]

shoulder getting better day by day. I have full mobility but there is still some hurt left on certain movements. So alll in all but my spirits are very much from stress, lack of sport...

[Jonathan]

that bloody rotator cuff! it gets the best of us - how many people have got such injuries? ive had mine (though it is very mild now) for 19months, though i am very bad at not training so this may be the reason why it didnt recovery innitially.

hope you get better pronto fruity

jonathan