You're not supposed to get injured from yoga!

July 29, 2009 7:18 AM

How do I nurse a wounded shoulder back to health?

Sooo...I seem to have blown out my shoulder, in some way. I've been doing Ashtanga Yoga as my primary means of exercise (and have had a lot of success...I love it. A lot.), but we do many many chaturangas during class (around 50 or so). Chaturanga Dandasana is a push-up like move, where you start in plank pose and descend downward as you do in a push up, keeping your body in a straight line, but with you elbows in towards your body (instead of splaying out).

I've spoken to my yoga teachers countless times about form and modifications but I keep getting a LOT of pain in my back and shoulder blade, near the side and bottom edges of my shoulder blade (a brief perusal of wikipedia tells me its near the intersection of the bottom of my trapezius and infraspinatus muscles and the top of my lats).

I don't know if I've done any permanent damage (...yet) but I'd like to do whatever I can to heal/strengthen/prevent this from getting worse so that I can get back to my yoga asap. Any advice would be *much* appreciated!

posted by Eudaimonia to health & fitness (17 comments total)

Do you think it could be your rotator cuff? I strained mine and the pain was in the same kind of area, but IANAD and there are, I assume, lots of other bits in there that could be hurting. I started doing lots of stretches of them before exercise, holding my arm across my chin, holding my arm, bent, behind my head, holding my arms straight out behind my back, holding my arm at 90 degrees behind my back and gently stretching it across to the other side. These helped the pain go away and strengthened the area around it so I don't experience pain any more. Later I introduced weights much like that article lists to strengthen the area more.

I went to a doctor to have the problem diagnosed, which was a very good idea and one that I recommend. My solution, though it is simple stretching, could be exactly the wrong thing for you to do.
posted by IanMorr at 7:30 AM on July 29

IANAD and I'm not sure if it's the same problem but I blew out my shoulder about 9 years ago throwing a softball and couldn't life my shoulder over my head for a while. I tried to let it heal on it's own but I still couldn't throw a ball until I took up the oft mentioned shovelglove about 3 years ago. I think any kind of low intensity, circular motion weight training would have done the trick to strengthen my muscles back into shape.
posted by any major dude at 7:34 AM on July 29

life=lift
posted by any major dude at 7:34 AM on July 29

Have you tried just taking a week or two off and taking iboprofen?

Does it hurt all the time, or just when you're doing the thing?
posted by creasy boy at 7:36 AM on July 29

And in general, could you just describe the pain better? You say you "blew out" your shoulder, but then you describe the pain as being way down in the middle of your back.
posted by creasy boy at 7:39 AM on July 29

I had a fractured humeral head a few years back, and that took a lot of rest and physical therapy. And a fair amount of painkillers/anti-inflammatories This doesn't sound as "invasive," but shoulders are pretty tricky, being a joint that is not really firmly connected to the rest of your body. Shorter -- go see a doctor, preferably a joint specialist.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:23 AM on July 29

IanMorr: its not around my shoulder joint but from what I understand the muscles that are causing the problem are the group of muscles that come together to form the rotator cuff (though my pain is lower down on my back, not the top of my shoulder)

creasy boy: Bad description of the pain, sorry. So its a kind of piercing/incredibly tight and painful feeling after I've done the move a few times (at which point I either skip it or put my knees on the ground). For a few days afterward the site is tight and sore...I've tried to stretch but that just makes it flare up
posted by Eudaimonia at 8:24 AM on July 29

See a doctor.

A doctor will run you through a battery of motion tests with your arm (hold arm like so, push this way) which will quickly isolate what movements cause the problem, and thereby tell them what part of the shoulder joint isn't working as it should.

The shoulder is a complex and fragile joint. Worse, the various ligaments and tendons don't have much room to work, when they get irritated, they swell, because of the space, they're compressed -- which further irritates them, and they swell, and you end up in a bad positive feedback cycle.
posted by eriko at 8:32 AM on July 29

If you can't see a doctor or physiotherapist about it, the first thing I would try is rest and ice for two weeks, maybe use iboprofen cream. I am not a doctor, but RICE is your best guess for any athletic injury.
posted by creasy boy at 8:35 AM on July 29

Go and see a doctor. Seriously. You might have done some sort of damage, you might not. You won't really know for sure unless you get it checked out. If you have, or have some sort of RSI, you may need some medicating, at least, or maybe some procedure or other, or even physiotherapy. Go and see a doctor, because nobody here will be able to tell you much of anything about how serious it is or may be.
posted by Brother Dysk at 8:37 AM on July 29

I have a herniated cervical disc in my neck that causes pain that sounds really similar to what you're describing. I've also done yoga on and off for years, but because of the herniated disc there are certain poses I can't do - chatturanga and plow are the two big ones.

Nthing all of the recos to see a doc - if it's the same problem I have, there isn't a lot they can do, but knowing what the problem is and avoiding situations that trigger it is helpful.
posted by chez shoes at 8:55 AM on July 29

Quick add: (IANAD) If this is a doctor-must-fix kind of problem, then the longer you wait, the more difficult and expensive it is to fix - if it can be fixed at all after stalling for too long.

My brother is one of those cases. A top ortho surgeon in my area basically told him that the surgery only has a 50/50 shot of helping, and a greater-than-infinitesimal chance that it will make matters worse.
posted by Citrus at 10:57 AM on July 29

Get an rx from your MD for physical therapy, and go and see a physical therapist that specializes in sports injuries. You might even see one who is familiar with yoga. If you go to www.apta.org and click on "Find a PT," you can find someone in your area.
posted by jennyjenny at 12:04 PM on July 29

Three weeks ago I hurt my shoulder - it's not like your issue; it's a rotator cuff problem. My gf could feel the swelling in the tendons at the front of the shoulder. I could not lift a wine bottle off the table straight-armed without quite a bit of pain. RICE as suggested by creasy boy, plus ibuprofen taken as an anti-inflammatory 400 mg every 4 h, plus daily massage have pretty much fixed it up. This doesn't mean don't go to the doctor; instead it means that at least some injuries of this type can be resolved without one.
posted by jet_silver at 1:25 PM on July 29

Personally, and this is just what I think from years of knowing people who deal with this stuff, don't see a doctor. I'm not trying to dog on doctors here, but to really figure out if you blew out a muscle/tendon/ligament you would have to get an MRI, which a doctor most likely will not ask for. What I would suggest is to, and this is the hard part, see someone who deals with this stuff all the time. A Physical Therapist might not even be a good idea. Sports rehab maybe? You really have to find someone who knows what they're talking about and they have a cultured skepticism of the general handling of these types of things. Ice and Stim rehab is not going to cut and rarely does.
The only reason I'm saying this is because a couple of good friends of mine have worked for major sports franchises in the past, so they knew all the dirty ins and outs of these types of injuries. If you can find a decently qualfied Active Release Technique therapist in your area, as long as they're not all woo-hooey that may be your best bet.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:17 PM on July 29

I'd like to amend my first bit of advice. Don't only rely on a doctor.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:03 PM on July 29

PoB: Huh? All of my MRIs have been ordered by my primary physician, usually concurrent with a referral to a physical therapist and/or orthopedic specialist. In at least one case, what looked to be a joint injury wasn't, and that changed the direction of the referral.

As far as the OP -- go see a doctor. S/he will do some poking and prodding and motion testing to determine whether something is torn or just stressed, and more than likely will send you off for further tests and evaluations. As eriko points out, shoulders are very weird, and highly interactive -- damage in one place may show up as pain somewhere else. I thought I'd developed tendonitis or bursitis in my shoulder (doing Pilates, of all things), and went off to PT via a referral from my primary physician. Wasn't tendinitis or bursitis. Wasn't even a rotator cuff injury. It was a moderately strained muscle at the bottom of the shoulder blade/underarm/rib area. All the rotator cuff work in the world wasn't going to solve that problem.
posted by jlkr at 3:07 PM on July 30