Rotator Cuff - The Cycle of Injury

       

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There is a frequent pattern of injury amongst those who suffer from rotator cuff inflammation. The shoulder goes through a cycle of injury, which is followed by healing, which gives the patient a certain period of pain-free time only to re-injure it. As this cycle continues, very quickly, the pain-free periods of time come to be less and less, and there are more movements that cause pain. This all contributes to the lessening threshold for re-injuring of the rotator cuff.

This cycle is perpetuated because the rotator cuff is continually injured as it is impinged under the coracoacromial arch. The rotator cuff has a very sensitive area on its superior muscle called the supraspinatus. The rotator cuff is made up of four different muscles. 90% of the injuries originate at the supraspinatus muscle. As a person goes through years of this cycling, the rotator cuff becomes scarred; becomes less flexible; it becomes more easily torn; it becomes less subtle. In affect, this rotator cuff prematurely ages and in this cycle of injury, inflammation, healing, scar tissue, the rotator cuff at some point becomes torn.

The key to treatment is to break that cycle of repeated injury to allow the rotator cuff to restore some of its flexibility to reduce some of its scar tissue. Constant re-injury needs to be avoided at all cost. It delays the healing process and contributes to scare tissue and overall decreases the range of motion.

If you have a shoulder injury, it is critical to heal it quickly and completely.

Michael Carroll, MD is a board certified family physician with a special interest in sports medicine. He is the founding partner of Creekside Clinic, LLC, a progressive primary care center in Traverse City, Michigan and a member of both the American College of Sports Medicine, and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

He also holds special interest in shoulder pain and rotator cuff injuries, specifically with regard to cutting-edge treatments and is the author of a Shoulder Pain Talk