dmanthree

I fell about three weeks ago and hit pretty hard. Mostly recovered now but the thing that's taking the longest to heal is the shoulder. The hip hit hard, but you'd never know it now. The shoulder? Apparently I bruised a tendon that seems to get sore when I ride. Taking a prescription dose of naproxin sodium and it's getting better, but damn. The shoulder keeping me off the bike? Shoot.

qcpmsame 

Did you see a physician about the shoulder? I'd be leery of a tear to the rotator cuff, but more leery of surgical repairs, a fellow church parishioner is a retired orthopedic surgeon, he had told several of us to avoid the surgical repair until the pain is just too much to go forward with daily. I hit my left shoulder in a fall from orthostatic hypotension induced vertigo, back in 2010, and it still gives me trouble to this day.

Best of luck with your recovery, I always make sure my bikes' setup is spot on to keep my cycling posture in a comfortable form, and depend on my core muscles to take a lot of the strain and stresses of the arms on my bars. I use 44cm compact Cannondale C3 drop bars with C'Dale Synapse bar wrap, and a 100mm C3 stem with the stack height set to my physiology.

Bill

dmanthree

Yes, I did see a doc. And yes, I will see an orthopedic doc if the pain persists for more than a week. In the meantime, I'm popping 1,000mg of NS a day, which seems to be helping.

qcpmsame 

@dmanthree, sounds good, keeping positive thoughts for your recovery coming your way..

Bill

dmanthree

Thanks! Nearly back to 100%, and off the meds so all is well. No plans to repeat the experiment.

rumrunn6

my left shoulder is a tad sore too. not sure from what. could be any number of things I've done to myself. including, but not limited to, falling off my bike a cpl times (to the left). guy I used to work with was a little older than me but we would often joke about aches & pains from minor sports injuries. our on-going comment to ea. other was: "give it 6 months". so good luck with that

Biker395 

I feel your pain.

”Didn’t see that coming” is precisely it. I was riding home a few weeks ago, and saw a good friend walking out of a sandwich shop. I stopped to say hi and we had a nice long chat. He’s dealing with this *second* surgery for a rotator cuff repair. The last thing I said to him was that so far, I was lucky, but life was strange and could change in an instant.

Not 5 minutes after I left him, some ninny ducked under a barrier and ran in front of me on the bike path. On top of that, the city saw fit to paint the bike path in that spot, and it was flippin slippery. So slippery that when I grabbed the brake, the front wheel slipped right out from under me and I hit the concrete HARD. Jacked up my left wrist, and my left hip ... bad.

After the shock wore off, I was able to get up (why are people always trying to pick you up when you fall rather than let you get up yourself), and walk around without significant pain. I was probably in shock, as I made the rather foolish decision to ride home from there.

The next day, it was sore to say the least. It hurt to walk on it or even move it. My friends talked me into an ER visit. The good news is that they found no broken bones. I asked if it was OK to ride my bike, and they said to take an Advil and let pain be my guide. Big mistake ... I had planned a 115 mile 13,500 day the next day. Lol. Believe it or not, it wasn’t painful to ride on.

But oy, did it hurt to walk on it. Holy crap ... hip pain is nasty. Almost fainted once. It’s just now getting to the point where I really don’t notice it and can walk around normally. And it has been 3 weeks.

“Didn’t see that one coming” is right. I don’t bounce the way I used to, and feel like I dodged a bullet.

curbtender

Yes, those shoulders take a while. I put my coffee on the top shelf so I had to stretch it out every morning.

frogbiscuit

I have had both rotator cuffs repaired - left about 12 years ago, I tore the rotator cuff, biceps tendon, and subscapualris (the one under the armpit) about 2 years ago I had a massive L shaped tear that was borderline repairable - he was able to fix it, but I have probably 85% range of mothin, and 75% strength. Long rides and cold nights will make it sore. I still try to exercise it but after 2 years, I am resigned to the fact that I will probably need a reverse shoulder replacement one day, but they are going to make me wait until I am 70 - 12 more years.

dmanthree

Damn, that sounds nasty! And yes, the healing does take a while, unfortunately. Like you, it didn't really hurt until the next day, and it really hurt, too.

Oh, well. Such is life on a bike.