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Old 04-03-2001, 08:28 PM   #6
guest1234
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 915
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Jun's advice is the best...it is hard to tell what is wrong with someone even if you are actually touching them. But i understand the insurance issue...so some things to consider.
If you landed right on the point of your shoulder, you may have stretched or torn the ligament that holds your collar bone to the part of your shoulder blade known as the acromion...called various names (shoulder point injury, AC separation, shoulder separation). Xrays can confirm this, since in milder cases the distance the bones are separated (due to the new laxity in the ligament) is relatively small...more severe cases you can actually see the end of the collar bone riding much higher on the injured side than the non-injured. mild cases need rest, ice, and something like advil/motrin/aleve. you may need to do exercises to increase your range of motion, like standing near a wall and walking your hand up the wall to raise your shoulder, or using a broomstick (or jo) between both hands to move the bad arm with the good (after you rest it a bit first)rarely, surgery is needed.
i think you would have noticed if you broke your collar bone...
you could have strained or torn your rotator cuff, often gives you problems in raising your arm especially in the first 90 degrees of motion. this usually happens with a rotation or twisting (there's also a lip of cartilage that holds the head of the arm bone in place in the shoulder joint that gets torn sometimes)...not sure how you could do that with the fall, unless your arm got twisted or flailed, or in your fall you partially popped your shoulder out of place and then it went back (fancy name is subluxed)...you really need an exam to tell what you did, but the good news is resting it for awhile and taking anti-inflammatories will do no harm (unless you have asthma or ulcers) so you could try that.But my best advice---see a doctor.
another suggestion, see your sensei or one of the senior instructors...there are usually medical folks in the dojo (my current one had five docs at one time, all my past ones had paramedics and or nurses as well as me) but even if not, the instructors themselves have either suffered or seen most injuries and are good at telling what needs to go directly to a doc and what can probably get better. So if you are not going to see a doc, please at least let an instructor take a look...besides, they can give you the best tips on not hurting anything else while you are mending.
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