Chronic shoulder pain?

Question

About 5 years ago i was armwrestling a kid in my class and since then, my shoulder has been injured. The pain is felt primarily in external rotation and i lack complete ROM. I cannot touch the opposite armpit from behind my back because of the injury. I always hear a cracking noise when i twist that shoulder. It only hurts if i do physically straining activities that involve the shoulder. So that rules out any upper body workouts. I went to many dumb doctors who said to ice it and take antiinflamatories, but that didnt work. I then got an MRI that jsut said that i have "mild effusion" , but i doubt this to be true as MRIs are not very accurate for shoulder injuries. I've come to the conclusion that the pain is either from the humerus bone (armwrestling often causes humerus bone injuries) or rotator cuff. How can i verify which one it is? What do you guys think my injury is? Trauma induced and external rotation affected primarily. Dont tell me to do physical therapy, i already tried it and it work after doing it for 40 days. I'm 17 btw.

Answer 1

An MRI would have probably picked up the rotator cuff tear.  It sounds like it is a soft tissue type of injury as opposed to a bone.  An arthrogram MRI will probably give you greater sensitivty for things such as a labral tear which is a possibility .

...also, remember that an MRI is only as good as the person reading it.  

Answer 2

I am not a doctor Just an athlete who had a RC injury. it took about 6 months to heal then another 6 months of therapy to get movement with out pain. if you tore you RC (sounds kinda like you did) as it heals you get a build up of scare tissue that limits you motion and cause pain you have to get therapy to slowly break down the scar tissue there by returning motion and reducing pain. That would be the good news

It is also possible that you had a crack in your bone. the bone instead healed the two sides of the crack  there mating surfaces and left you with a non healing crack. My Wife has this in a bone in her foot. that would be the bad news. My wife was told that they would have replace the bone with a metal one to fix it

Answer 3

were xrays taken also? if not, get them done because there could be a fracture of the two bones that make up the AC joint. if there is a fracture, then it's also possible that this could be affecting the rotator cuff muscles. you should try to work these muscles out regularly by using this workout:

http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/...

after doing these exercises, you should ice the area for 20 min