Quick Question about Physical theripy (wife is in HUGE pain)

This thread is from 2015

My wife buggered her shoulder about a month ago and finally it got to the point she could not stand it so we ended up in ER a week ago Monday. They took X rays gave her pain meds and sent her to a sports injury doctor. The X rays came back negative. She saw the doctor last Monday and the doc gave her a cortisone shot and sent her to PT. She went to PT yesterday afternoon and today she is in more paint than ever. As in she is chewing on vicodin like they were candy and she hates pain meds of any kind. I have told her to call her doctor. I assume that this is not how PT is supposed to work. At the moment I can not remember what the diagnosis was. But can I assume that they may have not diagnosed things correctly? Or at very least that the PT people are not doing there job correctly? Thanks

Yeah, time for 2nd opinion. It took a couple of tries with my shoulder for PT to work properly.

It's not uncommon to be really sore after PT, especially if she had stiffened up after the injury.

Could an Admin put this in Off Topic I screwed up and posted this in the wrong place.

Woody wrote: It's not uncommon to be really sore after PT, especially if she had stiffened up after the injury.

This, but also what cglockracer said. I've a friend/coworker that has had shoulder pain for a few years now and after trying a few different Dr. And a few different PTs he's finally found a good PT and it's made a huge difference.

For him nothing showed on xrays nor MRI until a couple months ago when a small abnormality in his cartilage was noticed in an MRI and it just happens to be located in the spot his pain is coming from.

Topic moved. Hope that your wife is feeling much better soon!

I have gone to PT for foot injuries, foot surgeries, and back injuries. Usually the night of the PT session I have to double up on my pain meds. Long term results have showed pretty good improvement though.

Could be overdoing it, wrong diagnosis, or she may just have to bear through the pain until improvement.

get an MRA (an MRI with contrast dye injected) as an MRI will show rotator cuff damage but not labrum damage. Don't mess around waiting either as labrum will wear was torn and you want to be able to reattach as much as possible. When I re-tore my labrum my MRA also revealed a cyst with an embedded tumor on the head of my humorous which a biopsy showed to be malignant. So once again, don't Berkeley around with it.

Well she is much better this afternoon. I took the day off from work to make sure things were ok. After further investigation she told me that the PT person did tell her that she was going to be hurting some after there session. I just don't think she was expecting it to be "that bad". As in worse than what sent her to the ER in the first place. She has a call in to the Doctor and the PT person so ask some questions like "Is this how it is supposed to be" and "Is PT suppose to make it hurt more than why she went to the doctor in the first place"

It's important to recognize that the original injury caused swelling. Couple that with the fact that she has probably been guarding her shoulder for a few weeks because of the pain and the two will combine to cause even more stiffness. The goal of PT is to regain normal range of motion that has been absent up to this point.

It's also very important to communicate with the PT and not just "tough it out" in sessions. My mom dealt with an undiagnosed broken pelvis for a year until she got a PT that figured out how to talk to her.

In reply to mazdeuce:

My PT this time around always brought me back from toughing it out and wanting to advance to throwing. When I would say that it was feeling better he asked if it felt "normal" as in not feeling anything, comparing it to my left shoulder, or if it just felt better then it was. Sometimes discomfort, opposed to outright pain, can still be a sign of something wrong.

I recommend drugs and alcohol. And rest.

In reply to 1988RedT2:

If you combine the first two, I think the third is kind of inevitable, and maybe permanent.

Wife does not drink and she HATES pain meds. When she starts taking them I know that it is something not to take lightly.

can you get a script for a TENS machine??

Hold on... Shaq now sells TENS machines... have her try that.....

Transcutaneous Electronic Nerve Stimulator... allows the brain drugs to get released.....

PTs are sadists who aren't happy unless you cry. As others said sometimes for the first few visits at least she may be in a lot of pain. When I first started working my ankle after I broke it the pain was incredible.

Just finished 2 months of PT for pinched nerve in lower back. I've had some soreness after sessions & I'm not whole yet but the PT seems to have helped a lot. I'll continue doing the things they had me doing in PT, expecting slow improvement. But slow is OK as long as there's improvement

Canoe hosiery?

Just reported both.

My wife is a physical therapist.  Seems like you need a different therapist. 

Example:  my father had some back pain.  After PT he was barely able to get out of bed.  Like the OP's wife he is not one to complain about pain.  After 30 minutes of facetime call with my wife telling him what to stretch he was able to walk (still with pain, but a big improvement).  

Not all therapists are created equally, and depending upon when they went to school they will likely have very different ideas about what the best course of action is.  The continuing education seems to not be a rigorous as it should be.

Good luck!

Get her one of those big gel ice packs for her shoulder

Xray won't show you much on a shoulder