Why You Shouldn’t Shrug Off Swimmer’s Shoulder

I tore up both shoulders, unimaginably bad (virtually everything possible was wrong with them (according to the endless MRI reports) including advanced arthritis). There was so much on the reports, the radiologist barely mentioned anything related to impingment (lack of room under the shoulder blades for the shoulder to move freely). I did the massive damage many months after swimming season had ended and the early pain was only stiffness in the shoilders (neck and other problems were far more painful. I had run smack into an autoimmune disease, horribly, with maximum damage for an older athlete. Sticking with the discussion on shoulder problems, I’ll leave out all the other grisly details. Within two years I had surgery on both shoulders and the disease was finally identified. The surgeon had sent me to physical therapy with no particular instructions (frightenly common) and the physical therapists proceeded to almost destroy my shoulders because of their ignorance. I quickly abandoned the disasterous PT. Subsequent MRIs highlighted the likelyhood of impingment. (And there are different shoulder bone types/angles which means some people have less space to begin with.) ALL the exercises I had been told to do were severely aggravating the problems! My shoulders were unbelievably bad and I saw no path to recovery. I knew never to attempt any prescribed exercise – never push any direction to its limit. The luckiest thing I ever did was stumble in to reading about DMSO. DMSO is a deservedly controversial substance and I would only recommend someone using it after they exhaustively researched everything about it. And then some. For me, DMSO proved miraculous. Miraculous. Reduced the inflammation including tendinosis and massive fluid buildup. I proceeded into any therapy (of my own design) extremelly cautiously. It was summer and the first try in the pool (20 minutes) was like being 120 years old and 1 year old at the same time. So many direction my arms wouldn’t go and so little contol of them. But once a week and tried to swim, and every time there was very significant progress. I had lost 80% of arm muscle but I could see it coming back strong with just a little swimming. I had always swam all the strokes so I was swimming them all in my recovery. The persistent problem was not being able to recover my arms out of the water in butterfly. I’ve now, after less than three months restored all my strokes to their pre-disaster levels – except the butterfly is lagging because half the time my arms do not exit cleanly. My strength is back, and I have no shoulder problems although I have yet to see what throwing a ball or swinging a tennis racket feels like. I am in the state of shock as to how thoroughly swimming (and I am a student of correct technique) has restored my shoulders and arms. Granted I swim at most twice a week and skip if I am suspicious of any slight pain. But I am astounded as to how good the hard motions of all the four main swimming stroke, and other strokes, and the aforementioned cure have proven on shoulders that had been desperately damaged.

Philipp Ferring