Medical Problems

Posts Tagged ‘Corrective’

DR Mike reviews the major ligaments of the knee.

The knee menisci are the most vital structures in the knee. This video reviews the anatomical structure of the knee menisci.

This techinique works to properly align the cervical spine. Remember, posture is at the subconscious level. So use this technique to automatically align the cervical spine. This is fantastic for the client to use. Works anywhere anytime.

The Medical Exercise Program Director develops, markets and manages the post rehab program. The program may be located in a physical therapy clinic, sportsmed center, hospital fitness center, chiropractic clinic or health club.

Dr Mike discusses how the Medical Exercise Specialist and Essentials of Post Rehab Fitness workshop were developed. … Medical Exercise Specialist post rehab fitness exercise therapy specialist corrective

Dr Mike reviews McKenzie or back extension exercises for those with a lumbar disc herniation.

Earlier this year I injured my shoulder by tearing one of the four muscles in my rotator cuff. Rotator cuff tears come in a large variety of shapes and sizes and can be triggered by a number of different events so I was relatively fortunate in that my cuff injury was only a partial tear not, a full thickness tear.

I remember lifting a piece of furnitire terribly and place too much strain on my shoulder. I felt a sharp pain in the top of my arm and shoulder and fortunately had the common sense to place down what I was lifting. I gave my shoulder a rub and carried on but the next time I lifted it was much more carefully. The pain had stopped and everything seemed fine, until the day after.

The next morning my shoulder was agony. Trying to lift my arm straight up in front of me, reaching out for anything or even getting dressed all caused me pain.  I couldn’t even tuck in my shirt without feeling a sharp pain at the top of my shoulder. Over the following days things gradually stiffened up and the same movements became increasingly painful. Not only was my shoulder giving me pain during the day but I was having distress sleeping. When I lay on my terrible shoulder the pain kept me awake. If I lay on my excellent shoulder, I had lie my arm carefully along my body so that it disn’t drop down and cause me pain  Life was getting very hard..

I finished up sleeping flat on my back which really annoyed my wife as I immediately started to snore like a trooper.

To cut a long tale small, after investigation and an MRI scan it turned out that I had torn one of my rotator cuff muscles. I had managed to tear my Supraspinatus tendon which runs under my collar bone, through a channel of bone before attaching to the top of my arm. As I had torn it it became inflamed. Because it was inflamed it was getting pinched by the bone every time that I went my arm in a particular way resulting in the muscle gradually fraying. It was chose that I needed surgery. The thought was to remove a small piece of bone to give the hurt tendon more room to go so that it could heal properly. As I was in the UK  I had a pinful wait of three months before my surgery date.

I started looking into shoulder problems and their various therapies and found out that most rotator cuff tears can be treated without surgery. Allow the muscle to heal with rest whilst treating the pain and inflammation with anti-inflammatory drugs and ice packs and then, once the pain has subsided start simple low weight exercises to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles.

The most vital element of this is the rest. If I had carried on using my shoulder normally, I would have been damaging it further every time that I used that muscle. If I had managed to ignore the pain or even managed to work through the pain I could have eventually snapped the tendon completely. That would have certainly needed surgery!

As it was by avoiding any movement that caused pain and by carefully treating the inflammation I gradually got to the position where I could do very simple simple exercises without suffering any pain. As the exercises strengthened my muscles I gradually regained the strength and movement in my shoulder and now ten weeks on I am pain free with full movement returned.

I’m lucky in that I have an office job. With a few simple changes to my desk layout I could avoid using the injured tendon. If you have a more physical job you may have to reckon a bit more about how to avoid using the injured shoulder, but it is essential that you do so as continuing to use it will make it worse and all the therapy in the world wont help if you manage to tear it completely.  Rotator cuff exercise features in most shoulder injury therapy programmes simply because the strength of the rotator cuff is fundamental to the wellbeing of your shoulders. Even if you have healthy shoulders it is worth spending a few minutes a day keeping these four muscles in excellent shape.