Eliminate Pain From That Rotator Cuff Injury
The predominant treatment for a rotator cuff injury includes some type of exercise therapy along with self-care measures. In fact many of these shoulder injuries often heal on their own with proper care. Below are steps to follow if you believe you have injured your rotator cuff. Then we can answer the question “how do I strengthen my rotator cuff?”
It should go without saying, but first thing to do is discontinue the thing causing the pain. Rest the shoulder and limit it’s range of motion until it starts feeling a bit better – usually a couple days to a week.
Take pain relievers until pain improves. Use OTC (over-the-counter) NASIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like aspirin, ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) or naproxen (Aleve), or acetaminophen (Tylenol).
During the first two days apply ice on the shoulder every couple hours to reduce inflammation and pain. Use a cold pack or just wrap ice up in a towel and apply for around 20 minutes each time.
Once pain and inflammation have improved switch to heat to relax the muscles which may have become constricted and feel sore. Use a heating pad or hot packs for no more than 20 minutes at a time.
Keep in mind your joints will get stiff with inactivity so after a couple days some gentle exercises will help to limber them back up. Favoring your shoulder and not using it at all can cause it to freeze up where it becomes so stiffened you can hardly move it. The heat will help as you start to extend its range of motion a bit too.
As the injury heals and range of motion returns, continue to exercise. Doing stretches and regular rotator cuff rehab exercises, along with a strengthening program will help prevent a recurrence of a rotator cuff injury.
If you’re already started seeing a therapist for symptoms, they will no doubt have discussed certain exercises to meet your particular needs.
Which ones will depend somewhat on the extent of your specific rotator cuff injuries, but they’ll be targeted both at improving flexibility, as well as strengthening the surrounding shoulder muscles. In the case where some are dominant, the exercises will help create balance across different shoulder muscle groups.
Beyond rotator cuff rehab exercises, other treatments for more serious injuries include steroid injections to relieve pain & inflammation, and various forms of surgery. A surgeon may do an open repair and mend a tear directly through a small six to ten centimeter incision, or do an arthroscopic procedure with the aid of a small camera inserted through another small incision.
More extensive surgical options would include partial or total shoulder replacement in the form of a ball and socket prosthesis. This latter is only appropriate for extensive or repetitive shoulder injuries that have failed to heal using less invasive procedures. But for people with arthritis, unusually complicated shoulder problems, and multiple muscle and tendon tears, the prosthesis approach may be best.
Remember that surgery often becomes necessary because past injuries were ignored and not treated. By finding the right answer to “how do I strengthen my rotator cuff?”, and following through with this sort of therapy, a recurrence will be increasingly unlikely and you’ll never has to deal with the surgery.
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