A couple months ago I posted about shoulder injuries that I have sustained through football and raquetball. Just kind of an update. My left shoulder which was thought to be a minor labrum tear has turned out just fine after a couple weeks of no benching and just stretching and moving it around a bit. However, my right shoulder which my Athletic Trainer said was a bicep strain turned out to be an injury to the AC Joint (Got an Ultra Sound and X-Ray) There is a large visible lump at the outer end of my collar bone that has been there since the injury occured.
I have only just began to bench and do upper body lifts after a solid 2 months, though some days my shoulder seems fine and stable, other days it’s weak and wobbly. Any thoughts? I start PT tomorrow. If I were to have surgery how long would recovery be? So many questions that have been unanswered.
“Once you have surgery, you will never be the same” That is what I hear from my doctor, I also have strained my AC joint
Best is to go with PT therapy and take it slow, it will take a couple of years for our AC joint to heam fully with no surgery
Have patience
If there’s a lump at the end of your clavicle, it’s probably a step off deformity due to stretching of the coracoclavicular ligaments. It’s a permanent deformity, but it shouldn’t affect your function very much unless your sport requires you to throw a ball. I know wrestlers and jiujitsu guys with grade 3 AC separations who still grapple just fine. As far as surgery is concerned, it’s nothing crazy. They basically use a tendon graft or synthetic material to replace the coracoclavicular ligaments and pull the ACJ back into alignment. The question is whether or not you need it.
Wouldn’t prolotherapy help reduce some of this stretching as it did in your sternoclavicular joints in your case study?