"I live in Germany and German orthopaedists are sharks. They just want to scan everything and try and operate."
Boy, Shakermaker, that sounds all too familiar and conforms to my own experience. Of course, I'm not an MD and cannot diagnose and treat etc etc etc blah blah blah. But what my old sawbones family doctor of 40 years said seems highly applicable in your case: Leave off all activity on the affected parts for 5-6 weeks and see if the pain subsides and/or goes away. Then, gradually resume activity in small increments. Also, one thing my old MD did that all the fancy pants orthopedic people did not was to administer a full range of motion study of the affected limb. For instance, if you can hold your arm out straight in front of you at a 90 degree angle, you don't have a full rotator cuff tear, no matter how they interpret your MRI in their favor to indicate the necessity of an operation. Try it yourself or get a traditional MD or PT who will. An MRI is subject to interpretation, a range of motion study tells the objective truth. In any event, take a very conservative approach before going down the path of surgery, which is an invasive procedure fraught with all the attendant dangers of such. It's been 7 or 8 years since Kaiser-Permanente said I absolutely needed a rotator cuff operation and my left arm is doing just fine today, thank you! In fact, I've been curling, bench pressing, doing pull ups and dips with no problem whatsoever ever since then. A 5 or 6 week rest and a gradual return to full activity was all it took.
