# Question about Dislocated Shoulder



## General Hickey (Jan 6, 2008)

Specifically, the sling. Doc was rather unclear about how long I should keep wearing it, it's been five days and my shoulder doesn't feel sore unless I test its range of motion, and it doesn't feel as if it's in any real danger of coming out. It was out for about fifty minutes when I dislocated it. I had it out a little yesterday, and most of today and it feels pretty good. I'm thinking about sleeping without the sling tonight.

My question: Assuming it doesn't come out again, is it better for recovery of the shoulder to be in the sling or cautiously out of it?


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## Berkley (May 21, 2007)

Is it your first dislocation? I've been down that road three times and generally had it in the sling for around a week each time. I would take it off at night after a couple days but mostly wear it each day. I loosened up the straps as the week went on to allow myself some utilization, but not too much. By the end of the week, the sling more or less served no purpose other than to let people know my shoulder had been injured. 

In my cases, I never did any damage to the surrounding area - your case might be different. I usually started physical therapy when the week was up. How did you dislocate it?


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## General Hickey (Jan 6, 2008)

Berkley said:


> Is it your first dislocation? I've been down that road three times and generally had it in the sling for around a week each time. I would take it off at night after a couple days but mostly wear it each day. I loosened up the straps as the week went on to allow myself some utilization, but not too much. By the end of the week, the sling more or less served no purpose other than to let people know my shoulder had been injured.
> 
> In my cases, I never did any damage to the surrounding area - your case might be different. I usually started physical therapy when the week was up. How did you dislocate it?


Second dislocation, first one was about three months ago. I dislocated it by propping myself up awkwardly, in such a way that my body was moving up and yanked my arm up and out (a very non-violent dislocation, where my shoulder was resting in its dislocated state was the extent of the stretching). What did you do for physical therapy?


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## kafromet (Sep 7, 2008)

Not trying to be a dick or anything, but wouldn't it be a lot smarter to call your doctor and ask them?


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## Berkley (May 21, 2007)

General Hickey said:


> Second dislocation, first one was about three months ago. I dislocated it by propping myself up awkwardly, in such a way that my body was moving up and yanked my arm up and out (a very non-violent dislocation, where my shoulder was resting in its dislocated state was the extent of the stretching). What did you do for physical therapy?


Sounds like your shoulder is pretty loose. At first, I had a physical therapist move my arm to work on my range of motion and get the joint moving again. Then we progressed to me moving it myself (after around a week). Then I started doing light resistance work, which progressed to heavier resistance work. I used a lot of therapy bands and 'the total gym' (google it for pics).

After I was done with therapy, I hit the gym a lot. My doctor said putting muscle on would help stabilize it and prevent future dislocations. Ultimately I had surgery after the third one. As you have probably heard 1000 times by now, the shoulder gets looser and looser the more you dislocate it. Not to be a downer, but has your doctor discussed surgery at all? If you're dislocating that easily, you might consider it.


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## General Hickey (Jan 6, 2008)

Berkley said:


> Sounds like your shoulder is pretty loose. At first, I had a physical therapist move my arm to work on my range of motion and get the joint moving again. Then we progressed to me moving it myself (after around a week). Then I started doing light resistance work, which progressed to heavier resistance work. I used a lot of therapy bands and 'the total gym' (google it for pics).
> 
> After I was done with therapy, I hit the gym a lot. My doctor said putting muscle on would help stabilize it and prevent future dislocations. Ultimately I had surgery after the third one. As you have probably heard 1000 times by now, the shoulder gets looser and looser the more you dislocate it. Not to be a downer, but has your doctor discussed surgery at all? If you're dislocating that easily, you might consider it.


Yeah, I was on a rest day during a pretty intense bike-packing trip, involving a ton of bike pushing. That, combined with the short time after the previous dislocation are probably what did my shoulder in the second time. The doctor that saw me wasn't my regular doctor, and he mumbled something about keeping it in a sling for a few days. I was just wondering at what point of the recovery do I remove the sling, but I've long since removed it and have been doing range of motion excercises.

I'm on another vacation right now, and I plan on calling my regular doctor for a recommendation on a physical therapist/orthopedic surgeon when I get back. Is a surgery something I have to do right away (if I need it)? I'd like to do some physical therapy now so I can at least get back on the bike, and maybe do a surgery in the winter so I don't miss out on the good biking.


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## WickedGood (Aug 19, 2008)

*Been there done that......*

Go to an orthopedic specialist and ask him/her about how long to wear the sling, get a script for some PT and get an MRI done so they can see the extent of the damage. I dislocated my shoulder twice and subluxed it at least 3 times in the course of a year and seriously screwed it up. I never wore the sling as long as I was supposed to... which btw was way more than a week. Usually they can do arthroscopic surgery but they had to lay my shoulder open and now I have a 5 inch scar. I wish I had taken better care of it to start with but I would have the surgery over again-- I've had no problems with range of motion in anything I do these days ----- which does not include fast pitch softball  
I had my surgery the last week of feb and I was carrying a 40 lb pack in glacier national park by june. Not a mountain biker then, so i don't know how long it would take to get back on the bike, but I was riding my horse one handed a week afterwards (which was pretty stupid when I look back.)


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