Im a little confused about Rotator Cuff injuries and TMS:

Hello friends,

Many of you will know DR. Andrews, a prestigius US surgeon specialized in sports meanwdicine. He works with the best athlets in all the modalities.
I was reading an interview yesterday and I would highlight this enlighting answer about Rotator cuff:


"Do we have the answer to labral tears?" he asked. "No, a large percentage of these still don't heal. I think we have a long way to go."

For all the improvements in technology, he cautioned, there also has been a downside. It has given too many surgeons itchy scalpel fingers.

"If you want an excuse to operate on a baseball pitcher's throwing shoulder," he said, "just do an MRI."

Food for thought...

 

It is surprising how the rotator cuff tear in my left shoulder - which was confirmed as catastrophic and requiring surgery to correct back in 2007 - just stopped hurting after 6 or 8 weeks and now seems as good as new. Back doing pull-ups on the lat weight machine at 180 lbs with no apparent further injury. Could it be that the pain I felt in my left shoulder was actually the same pain I felt in my lower left lumbar region when I had a so-called "herniated disk"? Might this all be due to the same general systemic condition that Dr Sarno defines as TMS? I'm placing my bet on Sarno's diagnosis, a dollar to a doughnut.

 

Thanks for your post Bruce, it really gives us hope!

What did you do in order to be able to go back to exercise and lift weights?

Warm regards

 

Well, I had the advantage of a second opinion from my old family doctor, who happened to be a senior internist at Sequoia Hospital. He ran his standard range of motion studies on me and said, "If I were you, I wouldn't get that operation. The range of motion in your left arm indicates a partial, rather than a total, rotator cuff tear. In 6 to 8 weeks, it'll hurt a whole lot less. Do some Tai Chi and exercise it with small weights after the pain stops". So I just rested it and started mobilizing with light weights after a couple of months. Seems to me though that the authority of my old GP's opinion inspired me with the confidence that my tear was minor instead of catastrophic. Kaiser had based their recommendation for surgery on the readings of one MRI. They never gave me a range of motion study at all!

You see what power a diagnosis from a physician you know and trust has? Sure enough after a couple of months the pain had gone down very much although it was quite a while before the strength came back. It just goes to show that these orthopedic surgeons are a little too quick to cut before nature has had a time to heal. But I'm sure that part of the reason it hurt so much was because of TMS "piggybacking" on a minor injury and intensify the pain level. Not coincidentally the rotator cuff tear was on the same left side where I had had a so-called "herniated disk" a few years earlier. Psychological stress coupled with personality type can certainly amplify the pain susceptible TMS-prone patients experience from relatively minor injuries.

 

I have been diagnosed with a rotator cuff tear as well. Interestingly enough after the MRI and diagnosis my symptoms got worse and now actually quite crippling! I highly suspect TMS since I have had issues with TMS since I was about 8 years old, but man is this pain ever a bitch. I am a pharm. rep and had a lunch today for one of my products at an ortho group who also had a couple of pain specialists. Eventually we began to discuss psychogenic pain, and I mentioned my small tiny tear worsening after the MRI. They all started laughing because apparently they see this phenomenon all the time. That woke me up a bit and helped me to begin to believe that this has just got to be mindbody, I guess I am needing to get more reinforcement since I am a great doubter.

 

There is a big difference between a muscle tear and a catastrophic tear of the supraspinatus tendon. Torn muscles are part of the strength training process and, as they heal up, get stronger. However, a completely torn tendon never joins up right again unless it's sewn back together or whatever you want to use - staple etc. etc. If you operate to correct a torn tendon, you also have to cut through the surrounding muscle tissues which often leads to long-term muscle weakness. The fact is that a lot of people who have torn supraspinatis tendons compensate for it by increasing the strength of the surrounding muscles mass to the degree that they're just fine. So, there's a trade off between the problems created by surgery and the problem of the torn supraspinatus tendon. Often it's better not to operate and allow the patient to build up his shoulder muscles to hold the damaged tendon in place. All I know, is that anyone I've known who got one of those operations for a torn rotator cuff never made it back to full strength. Sure, the pain stopped, but they'd damaged themselves too. I'd say, avoid surgery and let yourself heal up on your own.

 

This is a GREAT point BruceMC has made!

 

Update!

Hey all. I posted here a year ago and got great advice and encouragement. One year on, I thought I'd give you an update.

I was terribly stressed a year ago, freaked that I might lose my job and on painkillers constantly.

One year on: I lost my job; I started my own business (which is taking off nicely); I started weekly swimming and water aerobics; I made great progress with my psychotherapy; I got a lot of rest (mainly through being unemployed ; I started attending an easy aerobics class. My shoulder pain has virtually disappeared, my range of movement is almost back to normal. I'm sleeping like a baby and I'm happier than I have been any time in the past 25 years. I've found that we can get by on a much lower income.

I don't visit this forum often but when I do it's worth gold to me. The support and kindness I've received has been a phenomenal encouragement. Last year you - gently - encouraged me to get more exercise, continue my therapy and find ways to reduce my stress. I listened, it helped. Thank you!!!!

 

Thanks for getting back in touch with the board, I think it really helps those who are suffering to get HOPE from those who have been TMS-there, have broken through the looking glass of pain and succeeded! Sound's like a SUCCESS STORY. Your tile floors must be the shiniest on the planet .

Cheers,
tt/lsmft

 

Good for you!!!
Thanks for sharing your progress

 

Curious what Dr. Rashbaum, Dr. Sarno's chosen TMS successor at NYU Rusk, had to say about Avik's "rotator cuff"?

 

After much internal debate not to mention personal experience with Kaiser doctors, I've come to the sad conclusion that many (if not all) surgeries for rotator cuff tears are scams. The docs catch you during the first 6 weeks of the shoulder injury, when pain is at its height, and dangle the surgery solution before you when you're most gullible. "Anything for relief from this daily/nightly nagging, debilitating pain," you keep repeating to yourself like a mantra. That's the golden window of opportunity for the orthopedic surgeon to offer you deliverance with his scalpel, claiming there is no other solution to your problem. However, if you just waited 6 to 8 weeks, the pain would have nearly disappeared of its own accord. (But of course you don't know that at the time). Now if you have a 100 million dollar contract to pitch in the World Series in two weeks, surgery might be a good option for you.

 

That's been my experience with my shoulder pain too Bruce. Pre TMS, I was dx'ed by a neuro doc by EMG with "pinched nerve at c6/c7. He rx'ed traction and said if I didn't lay off tennis for a month he would be "...seeing me for surgery!" I did the stupid traction bag over the door for a month, read a good book by Dan Millman, learned how to write with my left hand to keep from going stir while doing the traction--and laid off the tennis for two-weeks. I'll occasionally get a relapse of shoulder pain for a few days--fewer and fewer of these relapses--I'll wait it out for a few days and it disappears.

 

Hi everyone,

What if the pain has been there for more than a year with no improvement?
I usually go swimming, stopped, and the pain and lack of mobility is still there...

Cheers!

 

Many who haven't had the good fortune to know of TMS, or don't want to know, may have chronic pain most of their lives in an area. Many have had it for decades, like SteveO, and healed when they discovered the Good Doctor's books. A year is not unusual.

Do you believe your is from TMS ?--or possibly structural?--or not sure? What have your allopathic docs said?

Hecate105 just posted a great testament to her husband being healed by TMS from his frozen shoulder:

"...My husband was supportive and quite keen to read a bit about it - even started the Structured Educational programme - but after 5 days gave it up and didn't go back to it until almost 3 years later!

...He'd had a 'frozen' Shoulder for a couple of years and despite sessions of Bowen Technique it had not been healed. I bit my tongue and didn't say 'perhaps it is TMS dear!' Eventually he decided to restart the programme and has motored through it -

... And his 'frozen' shoulder went straight away - no pain since....!"
​

 

How about Bursitis, do you think it can be tms as well?

 

Yes, bursitis can definitely be TMS, Sarno says this in his books. This could be true for any joint of the body. This might help: http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Bursitis (Bursitis)

 

I knew a ballet dancer who got excruciatingly painful bursitis in both knees, not long after she and her first husband divorced. Never had any knee problems before. Her mom was a psychotherapist and treated her for "a broken heart". The career-ending bursitis disappeared and she moved back east to join a new dance company in Philadelphia. No more physical problems since she happily remarried. Too obviously an episode of body-mind pain.

 

A friend of mine with a partial rotator cuff tear participated in a research project at a university medical center. The patients in the study had shoulder pain with MRI evidence of partial tearing. They were divided into two groups. One group was treated with surgery (and, I assume, physical therapy afterwards). The other group was treated only with physical therapy. The patients were tracked for five years. At the end of that time, there was no difference in outcome between the two groups. Individually various patients had better or worse outcomes than others in the same group, but collectively there was no difference between the two groups.

One might conclude from the five-year results that surgery and physical therapy without surgery are equally effective to treat the condition. Or not! Maybe most of the patients actually had TMS pain, and surgery and physical therapy without surgery are equally ineffective to treat that.

It is too bad the researchers did not add two more groups to their study. Group three would have had neither surgery nor physical therapy but rather education in TMS, and group four (the control group) would have had nothing--neither surgery nor physical therapy nor TMS education. I suppose the researchers did not add groups three and four because they believed the pain had a structural cause, not a psychological one. But even if they were open to the concept of TMS, it probably would have been difficult to find patients with MRI evidence of a partial tear who were willing to be in group four, or group three for that matter.