Shoulder Electrical Stimulation - For the record that isn't my shoulder. I'm not that old (yet)!
Since last post my right shoulder has continued to be stable. Recovery wise there’s not much physical changes that take place during week nine. The important thing is the shoulder is becoming stronger. It’s easier to lift things. Easier to open doors and jars. Overall just easier to live life normally. My biggest example of recovery came with a large snow storm that rolled through on 12/19/09. The storm dumped about eight inches of snow on the ground. I managed to shovel my 10′ x 100′ driveway, as well as, the large area around my house where we park our cars without issue. It took me a bit over two hours, but aside from some soreness in my left shoulder there were no ill effects. I was careful with lifting and made sure to lift at the knees. I also bore most of the half shovel full loads of snow on my left arm. Still, even my physical therapist said this is an excellent sign. I do notice if my arm vibrates or it is shaken the bone is still sore, but I can say that it does take both force and sharp movement to make it happen. Again, normally it feels pretty good (less than a two out of ten in pain) 90% of the time.
My upward rotation is around 175 degrees and near full motion. Oddly I can lift my arm to this position laying down or standing up without issue. When the therapist does it though I seem to subconsciously tighten up and limit my motion to sub-160 degree levels. I talked with both the therapist and chiropractor about this– they agree it’s either a physiological thing (and believe me one I try to overcome it) or because of the angle they move it at (there may still be a rough spot in the humerus at that point where it rotates). Either way though, I’m around 98% recovered in the forward and back range of motion. We continue to work on outward motion as well.
The therapist has begun weaning me off both the heating pad warm up portion of PT and cool down electrical stimulation portion of PT. We still ice at the end for fifteen minutes though. The worry is that I obviously won’t be doing e-stim after PT ends and that you don’t normally warm up your arm with heat before using it. So every other session we skip heat or e-stim (rotating what we skip).
I continue to experience minor problems with my left arm though that even seems a bit better. I find doing my at home PT in the shower is helping to stretch out the joint and keep my shoulders balanced. Overall though I’d say even the left arm is about 10% better than last week.
