I have a torn left shoulder rotator cuff. Tried PT. It didn't help. Tried accupuncture, and it helped for a few years. Then it started hurting again. The shoulder didn't hurt at all last ski season, but started hurting about three months after the season ended. It hurt yesterday. I skied today, and it's not hurting now.

Maybe I should ski all year to avoid rotator cuff pain. Australia, New Zealand or South America next summer???

Bob,

I have a torn right shoulder rotator cuff, (got called up by the Pirates for relief duty). Have had PT, x-ray. MRI next Sunday, my question is this "I am leaning towards surgery because any extension of the arm produces pain, therefore I am concerned with planting my poles to initiate a turn". Tell me about your experience with TRC and skiing.

Sorry to hear about your shoulder, Charlie.

First of all, here's info about mine. I have no impingement. I'd estimate that I get to a 3 maybe 4 occassionally on the 10 point pain scale. It even hurts when I go to bed, unless I keep my left arm above my head. It's normally a dull achy pain. My MRI showed a 1 cm tear.

Now on to your question. I have experienced absolutely no pain during pole plants, and for some unknown reason skiing provides some type of PT equivalent action which seems to alleviate my pain. I can't tell you why it happens. All I can tell you is that it does happen. Just as an FYI, I did two months of regular PT and it did nothing for me.

About the surgery, if you have it done you'll be six months recovering. The first month is spent in a sling which casues significant muscle atrophy issues. The you spend 5 months building up the muscles. I just had a good friend go thru it. His surgery was in March, and he is just now mostly normal.

Before doing surgery, I'd suggest that you give accupucture a try. It basically had me pain free for three years. It'll take 3 maybe four sessions to get to max benefit. I also did some research that seems to indicate that stem cell therapy seems to work. The down side: it's not covered by insurance (approx $7k cost). Do a search for "torn rotator cuff stem cell therapy" to learn more. I had pretty well made up my mind that I'd try the stem cell therapy before trying surgery.

If you have impingement issues, it is likely that your tear is worse than mine.

Hope that I've helped a little. Good luck.

Had my left shoulder cut on 2 yrs ago, now my right is going.   I think my oldest son told me ..........shut up and ride, to old to miss another season........just dont fall

Sorry to hear about your right shoulder. Mine is bad too, but the accupuncture treatment I had done two years ago still has it still mostly pain free.

I was trying to do 4 things by starting the thread.

1) To let others know that the action of performing pole plants seems to alleviate my TRC pain. If it works for me, it might work for someone else.

2) To let people, know that accupuncture alleviated my TRC pain for three years. It didfn't fix my tear, but it let me function. Again, it worked for me,anyone else???

3)  To let people know that TRC surgery leads to a very long recovery. If someone doesn't want to miss a season or part of a season, then surgery should be performed no later than early May, and March would be better.

4) To let people know that there might be an alternative to surgery: stem cell therapy. It is still not absolutely certain.

This is an old guys/girls problem. You don't have to have injured your shoulder to have a TRC. Years of wear and tear can cause it.

Good luck.

I too had rotator cuff issues and had the surgery done after physical therapy failed to produce results. The pain before surgery was excrutiating at times. It took me a year before I had 95% of my arm motion back. Similar to RLE, now my right shoulder is starting to hurt. Skiing was never an issue for me, but sleeping was. I could not find a comfortable position. It hurt the most when I laid down.

If it gets intolerable, I say go for the surgery.

Snowsmith I mentioned it to Charlie near the beginning of the thread  -- if I were you I'd try accupuncture. It helped me stay mostly pain free (or pain easily tolerable) for three years after two months of PT were a total failure.

You are right, if it gets intolerable you have to do something. Surgery has certainly been the best option in the past.