UKC

I dislocated my shoulder about 2 weeks ago whilst snowboarding. I know it'll be a while till I'm back climbing, but would love to hear any tips from others that have had the same injury...

I'm recovering OK, and pain wasn't as bad as I expected. Now starting some light physio on the long road to full strength

In reply to steveliput:

Quite a few years ago I dislocated my shoulder paddling a couple of months before I had booked a trip to El Chorro.
Luckily had access to an excellent physiotherapist and she drew up a highly detailed programme of exercises which I followed religiously but probably did them more times a day than was suggested. Saw the physio just before going away and she was amazed at how completely recovered my shoulder was. Took the climbing fairly easy at first but by the end of the trip was climbing back to my original standard so well chuffed.

Having heard of numerous people having recurring shoulder problems, I was determined to do my best to recover properly and to this day have never had any problems. I totally rested the arm/shoulder which was in a sling for quite a while before starting the exercises.

Good luck and be assured there is light at the end of the tunnel.

In reply to atrendall:

Hi Atrendall, it would be useful for the other forum users to know what your base climbing standard pre-sub lux was. You could be a 9b+ slab monster for all I know.

In reply to steveliput:

Dislocated mine mtb'ing in my teens when a tree jumped out at me.

I didn't climb much at the time, and physio was minimal from a village doctors surgery.

I repeated the injury whilst drunk at uni; climbing ~f7a/E3 at the time, and was limited to slabs, and actually going to uni full-time for a couple of months. Again, intervention by the medical community was minimal as the student health service was much more interested in STIs than sports injuries.

The injured shoulder sub-lux's (spelling?) quite dramatically, but is fully functional apart from an occasional clunk. (8b/E6/8A currently)

In reply to steveliput:

I dislocated mine climbing several years ago. It popped straight back in so I wasn't even really sure what had happened, when I suggested to friends that I thought it had dislocated briefly, they just told me to man up!
I stopped climbing for a couple of weeks purely due to the discomfort from the stretched muscles and tendons, then eased back in to it, ignorant of any potential rehab course and also not really knowing what I had done in the first place, no medical attention, no physio, no stretches, no rehab exercises.

Four dislocations later, I had surgery to get myself stapled back together.

After the surgery I followed the advice of the 2 physios I was seeing, exercises 3-5 times a day and a very slow and careful re-introduction into climbing. That was 18 months ago and the shoulder has never felt stronger. I'm still doing the exercises.
I'm pretty sure that if i had followed a decent course of physio after the first dislocation, I would have saved myself a whole heap of trouble, so my best advice is to treat it carefully and with the best professional advice you can afford and you could well be fine, perhaps even better than before.

In reply to Dandan:

just starting physio, just hoping it works fully!

In reply to steveliput:
Hello,

I broke a shoulder on Boxing Day whilst skiing, I chipped a piece of bone about the size of a pound coin off of the top of the humerus (I didn't find it bloody humorous I can tell you) and it travelled up into the socket, so I had to have a quick bit of surgery to fish it out and screw it back into place. I, too, was surprised at how little it hurt until post-surgery (at first I thought it was a pulled muscle or something and carried on with life as best as I could), and recovery is going fine, but the whole experience is just dripping with tedium now, to be honest.

I was told three weeks after surgery that I was not to do any proper climbing for about five more months at least, but I reckon I can bootpack up couloirs with a couple of axes just fine, so I might still get some skiing in this winter. However, I doubt I'll be fit enough to do any big days in the hills this summer, which is a total drag.
Still, life goes on, and it could be a lot worse.

I've been moving back and forth between France and the UK since the break, so I've not had the chance to start physiotherapy yet, but I'll be doing that at the earliest available opportunity, and I'm quite excited to get an update on what's going on with it.

I absolutely hate to do the whole plugging of my "web log" thing, but I scribbled down a few thoughts about the break and what it meant for me both a few days and a few weeks after the fall. I don't know how much it'll help or advise anyone in my position, but we certainly can't go climbing so what else are you going to do with your time?

Straight after the fall
https://altitudinalnoodles.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/whoops-261214/

A few weeks on
https://altitudinalnoodles.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/recovery/

Best of luck to everyone with this in their life right now.