My 14yo daughter has severe right shoulder pain. It started over a year ago. She’s a basketball player and I thought it was from overuse so we had her take some time off. Time off helped but as soon as she started playing again the pain came back. I decided to take her to her DR they conducted an MRI of cervical spine that showed a bulging disc at T6/T7. The DR said not to worry about that and diagnosed as shoulder instability and prescribed PT. She did PT for 2 months and it did nothing to lessen the pain and was causing numbness/tingling in her hand. Went back to DR who refereed us to an ortho. He did an xray of her shoulder which came back clean and another MRI of cervical spine (same bulging disc problem) thought it was a pinched nerve and sent her back to PT again. She did PT for 2 more months with no results. She couldn’t sleep the pain was so severe, was missing school it was a nightmare. Went back to the Ortho again and finally convinced him to do an MRI of her shoulder which showed bursitis & rotator cuff tendonitis. Go Figure! Anyhow, he prescribed PT again and gave her a cortisone injection. The injection was horrible the first couple of days but mellowed out the pain for a little bit but she’s still having issues. I don’t think PT is helping and she isn’t able to play basketball which is her life and is causing severe depression. I don’t know what to do this has been going on for far too long and the doctors don’t seem to be too concerned about it. Are there other options for this? She’s just so young and I want her to be able to be a kid and do all the things she loves to do. At a total loss…
RT tendonitis/bursitis and basketball - that's me too. I've had it since Feb but it's improved a lot and continues to get better but not near 100% yet. I'm not a doctor but can tell some of the things I've learned along the way:
- Like almost everyone, I didn't respect my injury at first and continued to aggravate it. Then I shut down basketball and all overhead activities for 6 weeks and it helped. I learned the hard way that you need to rest and lay off the shoulder for a period of time.
- Basketball is very strenuous on your shoulder. Anything overhead (shooting, rebounding, blocking and hands up on defense) aggravates RC tendonitis. Then things like passing and dribbling hurt too because she likely has inflammation that will inject pain into most everything she does.
- An orthopedist who is not a sports specialist may underestimate the stress of basketball on your daughter's shoulder. You should see a sports specialist for at least another opinion and for advice.
- My pain started going away 1-2 weeks after I shut down basketball. Along with the shut down I took a hot shower every morning (5 min directly on the shoulder) and iced twice a day. If there is inflammation you need to focus on getting rid of it - rest, ice and in my case heat as well.
- Exercise is also very important but in the right way. Everything under shoulder level for me. Once the constant pain subsided I started internal/external rotations with bands (and continue to do it today). I started feeling stronger after a couple of weeks but very slowly. I would find a good sports PT to work with your daughter on exercise regimen and progression. I probably was a little too conservative and started to stiffen up. I then went to the towel stretch and a few other difficult stretches for me as I'm normally not too flexible to begin with. I'm a man and 51 years old so I'd bet your daughter would bounce back much more quickly with exercise and stretching than I would. Interestingly, once I started to stretch out a lot of my pain started going away.
Since your daughter's injury is a year old I would sit down with a sports orthopedist and make sure the diagnosis is correct. It is possible that RT tendonitis/bursitis is just what it is and that her basketball hasn't allowed it to heal but you want to be sure.
Finally, you probably know that this injury causes weakness in your shoulder and that it can lead to some tearing/fraying. Any doctor that underestimates a year of pain in your daughter's shoulder in my opinion is not a good doctor for you. I personally would prefer someone who takes a more conservative approach, since this is a touchy injury and can lead to worse things if not treated properly.
Hope this helps and that she recovers quickly..
I totally agree with Jon. I am in the recovery phase from rotator cuff surgery. PT, rest and ice, ice, ice! Shoulders are the most difficult joints in the body to heal. Time is needed for healing. That will be hard for your daughter, very hard, especially at her age, but if she wants to play basketball again, she will listen to the doctors. I had my surgery 2 months ago, and am just going to "hopefully" be starting some strength train this coming week. Up til now, I average an hour a day at home. Just doing my PT exercises, plus the time I spend icing. I'm sorry if this sounds doom and gloom, and it is likely that since your daughter is so young she can recover more quickly. I wish her the best.
Your daughter's problem is different from my shoulder but I really hope she gets the help needed to correct the problem.