Crashed/Shoulder tear

Well I crashed and have some rotatory cuff damage. Doing 6 weeks PT then seeing if I need an operation. Worse part is I had a side effect, you know those long list of cr@p they list for every drug that never happens, and had a acid reflux/ulcer thingy happen from the anti inflammatory pain meds. So now my shoulder hurts ( because I had to stop taking everything) and eating is painful! A little tear comes to my eye when I hear a dirt bike snarling in the distant woods thinking that could be me running wild.

Goods news is it is basically the end of riding season ( I keep telling myself) and I have lost 10lbs! 204 to 194.... Nice!!! And all this will heal and I will be back riding come spring. Maybe lighter! And the big one.... It could have been much worse and is not.

Oh, and since it has come up recently, my fellow riders all did the right thing and responded properly and I was happy to not be alone. I could have made it out if I was alone, but glad I was not.

I hope you don't need the surgery and you heal up fast. There is no good time for an injury in my book. But at this time of the year you should have a lot of time to rest your shoulder.

Sounds like you have the right attitude! Hope you don't need surgery. I've had two low-speed high sides and both times damaged my rotator cuff. It can be a slow recovery path. I started with PT, and got my mobility back, but after my second injury I had lingering pain. My doc advised against an operation. So over the course of months I slowly experimented with different approaches (PT, no PT, ice, heat, pain killers, no pain killers, yoga, intensive exercise, intensive lying around, saunas, swimming, acupuncture...). I learnt the shoulder is a complex joint, and working on one part can easily irritate another. In the end, two things really helped: I found a good Osteopath, who identified that my issue was a trapped nerve not in my shoulder but in my rib. I was extremely dubious, but after two treatments about 80% of my pain went away. The other thing? Riding! After months off my bike, I got back on and did a series of day rides, nothing technical. I realized that while riding my shoulder was constantly in motion, but also supported by the bars, and somehow that built up the muscles more than a PT or gym session.

I do wish that protective gear was better designed for protecting rotator cuffs and AC joints.

Did you see the crash airbag helmet for bicycles? I am sure we are not far away from having one on your back that pops up to protect your entire body! Of course right now they are too expensive. Would be cool.

http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works/

I have a bruised shoulder that is getting better. It hurt so bad, that after it settled down, I discovered I had bruised ribs as well. Getting old sucks, takes forever to heal. I hope you don't need to go under the knife.