I'm sitting in the same boat, grade 3. Now exactly one week post injury. For those of you who had nice non surgical recoveries, when about did you stop needing the sling, or begin basic very light exercises? I'm sitting about with rubber bands and a squeeze toy doing finger strength. My regular hanging core workout is shot, so I'm looking at anything that places zero stress on the shoulder, leg lifts, superman, crunchs. Any other suggestions?
initially, no suggestions. About 3 or 4 weeks in, I was doing a shared bench press with a guy who separated his left shoulder. A few months in, and I was benching more than my own weight for the first time - and blew my shoulder joint out backwards. I don't suggest overdoing the recovery. My memory is very small increments in what I could do pain free, that came very rapidly. At first, the slightest twist of my torso hurt my shoulder, and it pretty rapidly narrowed down to pain in the AC joint. But that recovery was literally a couple of years, to get to full function. Note that I split my scapula, cracked the clavicle, and dislocated my shoulder, in addition to the AC separation.
Isolate the joints (curls on a preacher bench) to avoid any strain on the AC joint, it will recover faster. Avoid sharp pain, that's a pain you don't want to work through. Dull ache is fine.
keep the compression sling on A LOT. The connective tissue will grow to whatever length it needs to, to bridge the gap... Less distance is better. If I remember, it's partly ligamentous, so it takes a lot longer to heal than a muscle/ tendon injury.
Eventually, you'll want to be doing Crazy 8's, but again, if the AC is loose, it could make things worse, rather than better.
I'm reading this topic with great interest. Last week I rode my road bike up Mount Diablo. It started to rain. On my way down, I slowed down and am almost off the mountains when I lost control and slammed myself onto the pavement so hard I got the wind knock out of me.
I sat there on the road trying to recover from the shock. I thought I was ok, but instinctively I decided to feel my right shoulder to see if anything was out of place. I felt a bone sticking out (still under my skin) and thought I dislocated my shoulder/arm. My riding buddy said he'll pop it back in. After thinking about it I declined and drove myself to the ER.
I have a grade 3 AC/Clavicle Separation and my option was to operate or do nothing except phsyical therepy). Specialist wanted to see me 10 days later (1st appointment they could get me). I thought that was insane to wait that long. Luckily I was able to see an Orthopedic assistant and they put a figure 8 brace on me. I hated it. I ended up taping down my clavicle with KTTape after searching youtube on how to treat it. Works much better, but I realize my right arm/shoulders which is my dominant arm will never be the same and that I will have issues with push ups and pull ups (my favorite).
Does it make sense for me to try to push my clavicle back down? My wife has been trying to do this and the tape helps me put pressure on it.
It's too bad this happened to me. I'm not sure if I'll look fwd to skiing this winter because I don't want to fall on my shoulders again.
My grade III A/C separation healed without surgery, zero side effects. Also Oral pitched a perfect game after his no surgery A/C separation. He was pretty old too for a ball player
Get the surgery. I had mine at Sutter Pacific Health on Arguello and Turk in SF. The doc was an ortho who specialized in shoulders. No screws, the doc used Kevlar chord. I lost a year of my life but I'm back and can climb again ect.
Also, your clavicle hasn't risen, it's your shoulder that has fallen. The sooner you get the surgery the higher probability of full recovery. I had mine around 10-15 days after I got run over by a blind cab driver.
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