I just popped my shoulder again opening a bottle of beer.
Thought I was having a stroke. But 30 years back I dislocated my shoulder a couple of times playing rugby. It’s that which just came back to bite me. Opening a bottle of beer, that sitting on a table a little lower than the shoulder was happy with. Holding it with one hand, opener in the other. Creak – and the entire arm just goes entirely and wholly floppy. Like a seal, can move it by waving it around but no muscular control at all.
That I was shouting to raise the dead – and fluently – says it’s not the other thing. It’s just the damn joint gone. half an hour later fingers work, but arm has to be rested for them to do so. And there’s a definite “Eeek” at the thought of trying to do anything serious with the shoulder. Can type, so again don’t think it’s the other. And the pain is definitely in the shoulder……I can feel it click – clickety, clickety.
Sigh. Bugger. Age, eh? And rugby injuries.
If it is the blade and associated area it can easily be pushed back into place. If it is the arm really out of joint then you need someone who knows what they are doing.
If the blade is out,get some one to hold the front of the shoulder with one hand and make a fist with the other. You have to be totally relaxed. The other’s fist needs to position just to the arm- side of the blade and slightly above. Push directly forward holding the shoulder still.
You’ll feel the shoulder slowly return to position.
A lady’s fist is ideal. You don’t want Henry Cooper doing it, she doesn’t really need a lot of strength to push but she has to be strong enough to keep your shoulder still.
My Viennese physio was an exbasketball player and could do this with his finger and thumb ! He explained the technique and said that you have to imagine your shoulder’s bones as being suspended in a kind of soup, which is why it is possible to reset them.
Voltarol is the best for joint pain.
It’s back in …..never really jumped this time. Clicked …..
You could learn to do these tasks left-handed of course.
Easy for me to say – as I’m ambidextrous at both types of barclays.
Some 30 years ago I came off my bike cycling back from a night out (alcohol may have had some influence). Totally buggered up my ankle at the time.
Never had a problem with it for ages but I’ve noticed over the last few years that it occasionally seizes up without warning.
Hey ho. The joys of old age and all that.
“Age, eh?”
You don’t need rugby injuries, age is quite bad enough on its own…
Extend sympathy (remember seemingly inexplicable pain while using the hand when I dislocated a finger-joint and shoulder must be n times worse).
However, dislocation isn’t necessarily age-related as I haven’t suffered one since I was 18. Went home at the end of term carrying my suitcase in my left hand; parents sent me off to the GP partnership’s surgery: I was lucky, the doctor on duty was a (50-ish) member of my father’s hockey team who swiftly recognised it was a dislocation and pulled it back into joint with no bad after-effects except that the joint has been displaced a miniscule amount ever since as one bone bent a millimetre in the three weeks it was dislocated.
Bad luck Tim.
They should have taught you to run away faster at Downside.
That’s shit. I also had an old rugby injury that reared its head years later when I accidentally fell of my chair in the office. I hit something on the way down and the shoulder popped out. I ended up having to go to the casualty ward to get it put back in. That sucked.
Hold hard, Boss.
For much of his adult life my father blamed on-going discomfort on his “rugby shoulder”. Turns out that the much of the discomfort in at least the last few years was heart. Certainly he had a shoulder problem but he was not capable of distinguising the two sources of discomfort arising as they did in closely related areas.
Agreed re Voltarol. It’s good stuff
Praying, Tim.
You know you’re getting old when you… Begin talking to mates about your various ailments and infirmities.
As mentioned, you can learn to open beer bottles left-handed. You’ll need a left-handed bottle opener though. Still it’s Christmas, so maybe ask here indoors for one as a present?
To fix your rotator cuff and keep it fixed, exercise with very light weights, max 2.5kg. With elbows straight lift out to the side, straight in front, bend over and lift as high as possible behind you. Three sets of ten three times a week. Your local biokineticist will sell you resistance bands and there are plenty of places on the net that suggest shoulder resistance exercises such as the door opening and door closing movements. Tie the resistance band to the doorknob presuming you can get granny off it. To give the problem shoulder a break don’t sleep on that side. Wedge a pillow behind you so that you can’t turn over in your sleep. Go well.
Or you can do the potato sack exercise. Take two 5kg potato sacks and hold them out horizontal to the side and hold as long as possible. When you can hold this position for three minutes, move up to 10kg bags. I am presently at the stage where I can hold two 25kg potato bags out horizontal for three minutes.
Now put one potato in each bag.