05 Aug 2013
I'm nearing the end of my second phase of physical therapy (light strength training + aggressive ROM stretching). I've still got some work to do to get FULL range of motion back in my shoulder flexion and external rotation. Internal rotation is pretty back I would say 98%. I still need another 6-8 degrees in my shoulder flexion.
As the title of the post says, my therapist is hoping that I will have full range back by the 15th of this month. This leaves me 10 days left. Those 10 days are going to fly by fast and I'm really determining that I get healthy completely by then.
09 Jul 2013
Time is flying by. I'm starting my 2nd month of physical therapy. The therapy will be more aggressive than my first month. In other words, I'm going to be in a lot of pain most likely. Right now, I can raise my arm just a tad bit more than 90 degrees from having them by my side without having to shrug my shoulders.
The physical therapist has assigned me some homework, woot, finally. I've been waiting a long time for when I could start doing some strength and stretching exercises on my own. There are 2 stretching exercises and 4 strengthening ones. I'll post some pics and/or videos of the specific exercises later.
06 Jun 2013
So, first day of physical therapy. Today was supposed to be just an evaluation, but the therapist was kind of enough to get me started on it, woot.
The actually therapy itself was really nice. 12 minutes with a warm-pack on my right shoulder. Then, I got 10 minutes of a massage, apparently the upper back was a bit tight. This makes sense, since I'm using my upper back to compensate for my weak shoulder. Afterwards, I was manually stretched by the therapist while I was lying down. There were two stretches: one involved stretching my arm straight up towards my head at about 160 degrees, one involved laterally rotating my shoulder and raising the elbow, so that the palm of my hand was on my stomach, kind of like you would if you were rubbing your belly. After this, I was given a cane and basically gripped it like I would bike handles, pronated grip. I was instructed to raise the cane straight up from my chest so that my arms were perpendicular to my body. I was then told to slowly bring the cane back and above my head up to the previous 160 degree location. In addition to this, I was instructed to try and not use my right shoulder at all and to keep it limp. About 10-15 reps of these were done and was instructed to do them throughout the day. Afterwards, I was given a cold-pack for 10 minutes and sent home.