Ive had my shoulder dislocated FIVE times. The first one happened when I was in a safety harness and fell. That one went back in as soon as the harness was removed. The second was the worst, hapened at work while I was moving between scaffolds and I was hanging from some structural steel. As I sort of swung to the next scaffold the shoulder with all the weight on it went - pop!! I was working alone and it took me about 30 minutes to get that one back in. Talk about sweat, I was soaking wet. Not to mention the odd feeling and the pain that goes with it. Ill share more stories tomorrow, but untill then —
Tell me your shoulder dislocation story and how you got it back in place.
I’ve done both shoulders. First time was playing beach volleyball. Went up for the spike, slammed it as hard as I could and watched in satisfaction as the ball screamed past the defender and into the sand on the other side of the net… and when I landed, I looked down and wondered why my shoulder was hanging halfway down my ribcage. OW. I got it back in place accidentally – I walked over to the chain-link fence to hang onto it (to take some of the weight of my arm off of the shoulder joint) and it just kinda slipped back into place. It was that kind of nauseating pain (like getting hit in the crotch) that makes you wanna wet your pants and puke at the same time.
My other shoulder I dislocated mountain biking. I went over a log pile, came down crooked and broke my fall with my left arm. Stood up and swore – I’d done it again. My biking buddy was looking at me with an expression of horror and indecision; what was he gonna do? I just smiled at him, walked over to a nearby sapling and yanked on it as hard as I could, and the shoulder reset itself.
Rather stupidly, I’ve never gone to the doctor about either one – I just let 'em heal naturally. They dislocate every so often, still, especially when they’re stressed at odd angles (f’rexample, doing shoulder rolls in jujutsu practice).
Dislocated my left shoulder seven times in junior high.
The first time was doing the high jump in gym class. I was doing a Fosbury flop-style landing and came down with my left arm under me. Ow. It slipped back in by itself as I was walking to the nurse’s office and she refused to believe I’d really dislocated it. She’d become a believer soon enough.
The worst one was playing handball in gym. I swung my arm up to smack a volleyball and the impact knocked it right out of joint. No lifting, stretching or tugging could get it back in, so I ended up going to the emergency room. They shot my arm full of demerol to try and relax the muscles and got to work. First they tried more lifting and stretching, then had me lie face-down on a gurney with the arm hanging off and weights in my hand. Finally, the doctor said “ok, I’m gonna have to try the Irish method.” He took my arm with both hands, gave a little jump and YANKED down as hard as he could. That finally worked. Altogether, my arm was out for about two or three hours.
After that incident, I decided to get the surgery done to fix it for good. So far, it’s worked.
I`m cringing now Sublight.
Ive only dislocated my left arm, so far. The third time I did it I was merely throwing a snowball. Im not left handed, but I was trying to hit someone hiding behind a car and the only way to throw it without exposing myself was with the left hand. A big slushy snowball it was. After I threw it I just layed on the hood of the car in pain while my enemies pelted me with snowballs. I could not convince them that my shoulder was out.
I have gone to the doctor, once, after the second time. He didnt believe it was ever really dislocated. I could tell it was. I will never go to the ER for this unless I pass out first. I saw a real life ER show (code blue or something) that showed three doctors taking turns on this guy trying to get the arm back in, No fahreakin thanks!!!
Heres my fixit method. I sit in a chair and try to relax. Then I place my left elbow on my left knee with my left fist under my chin(like the thinking monkey pose). Then I take my right hand and cup it in my left arm pit and push up and out at the same time. I usually goes back in after a couple of tries. Man, as soon as the shoulder goes back in place you feel totally relieved. Its like your heart starts beating again or something. I hate when it happens but it`s kind of cool to talk about.
In the midst of going up for a dunk in an AAU game, some little guard undercut me. I land full force on my left shoulder, dislocating it. It hurt like crazy, but it was more like the “Wow, that was a long fall. Hmm, my shoulder probably shouldn’t look like that. Hey, I bet that’s a dislocation. Wow, never thought it would happen to me.”
I sort of stayed in that state of wonderment until I made it to the locker room, at which point the pain hit me. At that point, to take my mind off the pain of the shoulder, I told my teammate who helped me into the room to punch my arm. I meant my right arm. He hit my left. That managed to pop it back into place.
I went back in the game 5 minutes later.
I dislocated my left shoulder six or seven times in one year. The first time, I was running on the deck by a swimming pool (you know how they always have signs up saying don’t do that? Those signs are there for a reason.). I fell and landed flat on my face, with my hands in front of my face, palms down. Since I was at a remote resort in the Sierras, it was dislocated for five or six hours. Over the next six months, I dislocated it doing pullups, playing volleyball, reaching under the dresser for a stray ping-pong ball, and a few other times. Most of the time it went back in by itself.
After the last time, my doctor decided that was enough of that and I had a tenodesis done. It hasn’t dislocated since, but it hurts when the weather changes and my left arm doesn’t have quite the range of motion of my left (if I stand and point my arms straight out to the sides, my right arm goes back five or ten degrees farther).
I popped my left shoulder out some years ago, in an accident far too stupid to describe. (It involved tripping over my own feet in a bus station.) I was taken to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, where the errant joint was put back into place by the most modern of current medical methods, i.e. a malnourished orthopod hauling on my left arm like Quasimodo on the bell ropes.
Haven’t managed to repeat the procedure, don’t particularly want to. I’m told that once you’ve had a dislocation, you are at greater risk of getting another one (the bones get a taste for freedom, you see), but so far I’ve managed to avoid it.
Did mine swimming-- boy, it was hard climbing that pool ladder. I think it was a pretty thorough dislocation and there was NO WAY I was going to try some macho putting-it-back-in-myself thing, so I got the campus doctor to do it-- the demerol, relax, have two people haul on your arm ‘human tug-of-war’ technique.
Mr. Capybara has had his dislocated many many times-- skateboarding, trialsin biking, surfing, yoga, stretching while checking his e-mail. . . sometimes it goes back in itself, sometimes it doesn’t. He’s had it rebuilt with the titanium wire, et al, and that helps a bit, but it hasn’t entirely stopped. Now that he’s a more sedentary mid-30s adult he only does it about once every two years.
(To all good threads, there must be a tangent…)
Wow, I thought a separated shoulder was bad, but reading these, I’m beginning to doubt it. Then again, I had a broken femur to keep my mind off my shoulder.
whuckfistle, you deserve a good shoulder specialist. Chances are good an arthroscopic repair could stabilize your shoulder, and not have to face the possibility of chronic dislocations. Eventually, after enough of them, the humeral head could get compression fractures, and then it will hurt all the time, not just when dislocated.
QtM, MD
I dislocated my left shoulder around 20 times or so before finally getting it fixed. I originally did it in a fight in high school, and being jazzed on adrenaline, I just shoved it back into the socket. Really bad move. I ended up shearing away parts of the head of my humerus, and this guaranteed that it would pop out again and again. And I agree that it’s a nauseating, pants-wetting kind of pain.
It got to the point where it would roll out while I was sleeping or opening a door. I only had to go to the ER once, since it would pop back in if I could just relax and slow my breathing. As painful as it was, you sort of get used to it.
Fortunately, I managed to find a genius of an orthopedic surgeon to fix it. He told me that it was one of the worst he’d seen and that I could expect only 70-80% range of motion. The surgery and rehab were miserable, but in a few years it was as good as new. I box and swim, and it never gives me the slightest problem.
I don’t know if he was joking, but my surgeon said that we had the NFL to thank for a lot of orthopedic innovations.
I’ve dislocated my right shoulder 13 times. And let me just say, it sucks so much. The pain of a dislocated limb is one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. Every muscle was stretched tighter than it had ever been, and although I could move my fingers, my arm just felt so cold and strange… almost like it didn’t belong to me.
The first time I dislocated it, I was 12 years old and playing football with my brother and his high school friends. They weren’t supposed to tackle the girls but one guy had a little bit too much momentum and could not avoid hitting me while I had my arm up and ready to throw the ball. The collision knocked my shoulder out of place. It slipped back on its own a few minutes later.
The next few times the shoulder dislocated the bone slid back and over so I was unable to fix it alone. I went to the hospital and after major drugs, they did the “tug in two opposite directions until it pops” thing. Basically one person holds your body while another person pulls on your arm until the bone pops back in place. Yes it’s as painfull as it sounds.
It finally got to the point where any sudden movement, even an unexpected sneeze would cause my shoulder to dislocate so I had surgery and everything was fine for a long time.
Seven years after the surgery, when I had completely let my guard down and almost forgotten how much a dislocation hurts, I went to sleep one night in my favorite position (on my stomach with my right arm under the pillow) and woke up to a dislocated shoulder. It turns out that my favorite position causes the most strain on the ball and socket joint of the shoulder and when asleep and completely relaxed, my shoulder pops out of place. Needless to say, I can’t sleep that way anymore.
Thankfully, I’ve gone a few years without a severe dislocation and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.
Thanks for the thought,
luckily I havent had the shoulder out of socket for going on two years now. Im keeping my fingers crossed.
Are we talking full-on dislocations (where the collar bone pulls away from where it is attached) I think it’s the acromio-clavicular joint
or subluxes here?
mine sublux (where the humerus comes out of the socket and will pop back in, stretching the tendons, but nothing breaks, still hurts like shit) left one will if i reach too high for a rock hold or a rebound, or sleep wrong (depending on how much i’ve been strengthening it lately).
Both were injured wrestling in H.S. then aggravated snowboarding.
It happened playing ultimate once, hung there for a good few minutes while everyone freaked out about this thing hanging from my torso, then I let it relax and slip back in, and played the rest of the game (carefully)
I can personally attest to Qagdop the Mercotan’s info. I got hit by a truck whilst on motorcycle. Long story short, they had to knock me out and put my shoulder back in. Recovery. Physical Therapy, etc. All was fine… until…
I went swimming and…
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN!!!:smack:
everything was totally groovy until 1 particular motion I made. Moving my arm through the water, the resistance forced my shoulder out :eek: (to the front was the direction mine always went). Being as I was in a pool full of families, children, etc. at my apartment complex, I thought AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!! would be an inappropriate reaction. SO, I sucked it up and grabbed the hand of the lame (*left) arm with the right, and guided/forced both arms up in an arc in front of me until it went pop back in. I bit my lip, winced and 1-arm-gimped it up out of that friggin pool. After that it came out of it’s socket with increasing ease. I got worried when it didn’t hurt anymore. pop pop pop in, out, in, just like that.
Eventually I had arthroscopic surgery and I will say this:
1). It hurt afterword worse than getting hit by that damned pickup truck
2). Cool scar
3). Nice to feel good about sending my surgeon’s kids to college… I didn’t have medical insurance at the time.
4). Fun with airports, courthouses and those metal detector hobbyists… the 6 inch steel bolt, nut and 2 washers imbedded in my shoulder are easily explainable. When the security wand goes off I just tell the Air Marshall "hey, back off jack!.. you are f***in’ with the wrong cyborg, Mr.!