Surfing Waves

Went around to a friends house last week to hang out, made a sly joke and he pushed me over and laughed it off.. Until, I stood back up again with my right arm clearly in the wrong position closely followed by a horrible pain. Landed myself a nice posterior shoulder dislocation. Was out for about 3 hours before I was seen by 2 ortho doctors and an IV of morphine. Had it slung and immobilized for over a week now and go back to hospital this Wednesday to see how it's going. Guess what I'm getting at is I'm terrified of developing complications and popping my arm out every time I paddle or something. I miss the sea.

Anyone had a simalar injury? If how did you deal with it?

Peace .. Darren

dislocated both shoulders and knees when i was a teenager. I still cant throw anything very hard or else i risk popping it out but thats about it. Hasnt impacted on surfing or anything like that. I just avoid having a stone throwing contest.

I got a bad left shoulder from dunno when - happened as a kid at infants school age I think. Hand goes a bit numb and my upper arm just hurts like hell sometimes.

GOOD NEWS though - when I was at the peak of my surfing it never bothered me so hopefullly the same might apply to you - i.e surfing might build the shoulder up and you'll be fine

I did my right shoulder when surfing, and have always had trouble with it, popped it back out a few times since, especially getting thrown over the falls on bigger waves. It goes back in pretty easy now though. I've done it once snowboarding too. It got a lot better after a few years, maybe because of building the muscles back up around it, and it hasn't happened for for or five years now.

It's pretty sucky being stuck out the back with your arm smacking you in the back of the head, and only being able to paddle round in circles.

I've dislocated both shoulders multiple times, a few times playing squash but mostly from lacrosse...

I had physio on them for months to avoid having surgery. I think, from what I remember, dislocation tends to stretch the tendons in the shoulder tht hold the ball + socket joint in place. This means that once this happens once, the likelihood of it happening again increases.

Surgery can be a last resort method to artifically shorten/tighten the ligaments, but this can often be avoided by doing regular excised every day to strengthen those yourself.

I'm sure you could find demo's of similar exercised in google, but I really would advise seeking advice of a physio to show you the proper way to do this (i'm sure it will involve a giant elastic band).

Best to catch these things early! Then you keep your fingers crossed, and always warm up the shoulders!

Hey,
Had a pretty bad anterior (i.e. forward) dislocation three times. Your shoulder will unfortunately be vunerable to re-dislocation when it is in the same position as when the trauma occurred the first time. Get yourself a good physio and do the exercises religeously.Also try to get to the pool if thats a suitable exercise for your injury. I refused surgery as my physio said that (in my case!!) I could get back to 95% without it and happily i'm there.
If you are really worried about popping it out again then try a Sully neoprene shoulder support when youre surfing for a while, they're damn inconvenient, hot and cumbersome but worth it for that extra security. And finally, dont be too careful with it because you will need to get back an almost full range of motion for paddling.
Your surfing hasn't ended at all, you'll just have to earn it a little more.
Good Luck.

Duncs wrote: (i'm sure it will involve a giant elastic band).

Ah the magic band! Cures all!!! It worked for my shoulder! Not a dislocation but a raised coller bone, or something like that.

Duncs wrote:Best to catch these things early!

Couldn't agree more. I got a telling off from the physio when I was there for waiting about 8 months before I got my shoulder sorted, couldn't sleep, couldn't raise my arm above my shoulder, couldn't do anything. Now I go to the Dr every time I hurt myself, in fact I was there last week with a sore foot, apparently a tendon has partially separated from my foot, but I think the diagnosis is a bit premature as I've had a good day today..........hang on that's what I kept saying about my shoulder!

Anyhoo, don't let it get you down and make sure you mate knows it was his fault!!!

Happy to say my ortho consultant thinks that my likelihood of re dislocation is very slim which you can imagine i was super stoked to hear . got referred to a good physio and have almost got my entire range of movement back after only one week of stretching exercises and now im onto my strength building exercises as he thinks i have no resulting instability in the joint, and as mentioned im using a huge elastic band HA its wicked. all in all im sooooo fleshen stoked that i have made some kind of miraculous recovery and going surfing all this week. woop. Thanks for all your advice and support with this guys.

Peace. Darren