I have had pain in front of my left shoulder about an year. When I do bench pressing or something similar, it begins to hurt after few reps. Also playing pool or snooker hurts. Recently the hurting has gone worse, and it has also began to jam my upper-left trapezius. Moving the hand won’t hurt immediately, but after few reps or very strong intensity it begins to hurt. I had an infection of some sort in my left bicep tendon or near that two years ago. I have been out of the gym for about to weeks so my shoulder would get some rest, but it has not gone any better, almost feels worse.
I went to the private orthopedist last week, and he suspected either torn labrum or infection in shoulder bursa. He said I would have to go to MRI before he could do anything. The problem is that I’m student, and the MRI costs 400 euros, which I cannot afford. Especially when I know that the possible surgery would be even more expensive, probably around 4000 euros, which is almost my yearly income. Another choice would be waiting four months to get to the free public health care MRI. And then probably another four months to the possible surgery.
Today I went to the student health care to see a general practitioner, who said that it’s probably just some kind of infection, I should just keep doing weightlifting, and begin to eat NSAID (ibuprofein) at the same time.
I don’t know what should I do, should I just keep working out and eat NSAIDs, rest and eat NSAIDs, go to another doctor, pay the 400 and go to the MRI or what? I’m so frustrated, I have never had such a huge motivation for lifting weights as now, I even left my work so I could concentrate on lifting whole summer. And then this happens…
You need a contrast MRI, they cannot tell what is wrong without one.
I just wasted 4 months of trying to work around, rehab, ART my shoulder into feeling better. After getting a contrast MRI, my ortho diagnosed me with severe inflammation and gave me a cortisone shot. One week later and I was good to go.
A good sports ortho is worth their weight in gold.
I had a similar exerience with both of my shoulders. Nothing can replace a good sports ortho and an actual diagnosis, but here is what helped me:
I had/have relatively weak external rotators in the shoulder which put extra stress on the biceps tendons because of the strength imbalance. Everyday I grab a tennis/baseball and lie on it with it in the back of the shoulder socket and on the infraspinatus muscle. This seems to immediately remove any pain from both internal and external rotation at the shoulder.
I also foam roll my upper neck against a wall and that loosens all the erector muscles up and down the back.
From a strengthening standpoint, I have made the most progress by concentrating on facepulls and heavy eccentric reps of external rotations followed by dropping the weight or tension in a band and doing some concentric reps. (3 very slow ecc. reps with two bands followed by 5 explosive con. reps with one band)
I also had tight pec muscles so stretching them anytime I do back exercises seems to give me a greater range of motion.
Hi There are many articles written on this site for shoulder pain.
So—when it hurts benching ,we keep doing it, for over a year?
Stop benching, strengthen your posterior chain,strech pecs.
Read alot and rehab.
If it was an infection, it would have gotten much worse and would ache ALL the time.
Would an MRI help, sure.It hurts way less when you stop annoying it.
Dr.Tim
Thanks for comments everyone. I had many weeks, sometimes over month when I didn’t go to gym or changed movements, but as soon as I got back, it started to hurt again. I have actually read about 20 articles or so about shoulder pains on T-Nation and other web sites in past weeks when I haven’t been at gym at all, and I think I now know more about shoulder issues than average joe. I have also began stretch more and stuff like that.
But anyway, I think I’ll try take some loan so I can get to the MRI as fast as possible, but I cannot afford to the possible surgery in private health care. But when I have the MRI results, I can then go to the public health care with those, it will be free surgery there, but I have to wait several months… I wish, although I doubt, that those ibuprofeins and rest would do it, if it’s inflammation or something like that (I wrote infection at original post, meant inflammation…). I really doesn’t want to take a several months break from upper body workouts, but it seems that I probably have to.