Yes is the right answer but not in the same order. It also depends on how badly you have torn it. Most cuff tears will get better with just rest and exercise but any serious partial tear or full tear may need surgery before any therapy will help.

What is important with any type of torn rotator cuff treatment is to rest the muscle and let the tear begin to heal. Working through the pain of a rotator cuff is only going to leave you booking corrective surgery as you do more damage to the tendons, so rest is the first thing that you need to do.

Along with rest, you need to bring down the inflammation before you can think about starting any type of exercise. The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles that help to keep the shoulder stable by pulling the head of the upper arm bone into the socket of the shoulder. They are small but vital muscles that cover the shoulder joint forming a cuff of muscle that supports it, in doing so they run over and sometimes under the shoulder bones.

Any inflammation to these tendons can cause pain as the inflamed tendon can impinge or catch on bone. A classic example of this is the supraspinatus muscle which runs under the collar bone and the acromion of the shoulder blade. When this muscle swells it catches on the channel of bone and start to wear or fray. Worst case scenario is that you could end up with a snapped tendon that would leave you needing shoulder surgery.

So let the muscles rest. This means steering clear of any of the movements that are painful. If your work includes a lot of overhead movement you might need to modify the way in which you work. If you spend the day sitting at a desk, you might need to change the setup of your desk to avoid stretching or reaching movements with the damaged shoulder. It might even be necessary to take a few days off to rest the shoulder properly.

At the same times start to reduce the inflammation. You could do this by using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as Ibuprofen and also by using ice packs on the damaged muscle to help to bring down the swelling. If symptoms persist it may be necessary to have a steroid injection into the muscle to combat the inflammation. Your doctor should be able to do this for you.

Once the muscle has started to settle down you can begin simple exercises aimed at strengthening your rotator cuff muscles. Don’t go rushing to the gym thinking that any type of exercise will do the trick. It won’t. Pushing weights before the muscle has healed properly is likely to cause more damage.

Rotator cuff exercises use little or no resistance when recovering from an injury. They will begin with gentle exercises that do not cause any pain. If you do feel pain when exercising stop straight away as this is a sign of further damage being done. It may be that you started exercising too soon.

And don’t forget, when your shoulder is fixed and back to its full pain free movement, don’t just give up on the exercises. Rotator cuff injuries are very common but most of them can be avoided by keeping the rotator cuff muscles healthy so just take five or ten minutes a day to keep them happy.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.