The Top 6 Tips For How To Heal A Rotator Cuff Problem Without Surgery

Are you looking for help with a rotator cuff problem? Do you think you might have a torn rotator cuff or some sort of rotator cuff injury? Are you having trouble lying on that shoulder when you go to sleep at night, or raising your arm up, or picking anything up of substantial weight, even light things like a cup of water, your coffee in the morning?

If you have these types of signs, chances are you might have a rotator cuff problem. If you have been told by a doctor, or you have had an MRI, that you have a rotator cuff problem, then this video is going to be super helpful in getting you kickstarted in the right direction on healing your rotator cuff problem.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh, I’m a specialist physical therapist at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy and I’ve been helping people out with rotator cuff problems for a long time. The coolest part about it is that we have scientific evidence, scientific research that shows that rotator cuff tears can be healed without surgery, as long as they are treated properly. So, this is great news. If you have a rotator cuff tear, you can heal without surgery, and it’s evidenced by research.

Healing a rotator cuff problem is a process. It can take a while, but it is possible to heal virtually 100%, and get back to doing all the things you were doing before. I’m going to cover the top six tips on kickstarting healing a rotator cuff problem

Number One: Relative Rest.

What this means is that you got to take it easy on that shoulder. You don’t want to do anything aggressive. You don’t want to exercise really hard, especially if it hurts to do simple things or simple movements. The classic one is reaching behind your back to reach for a bra strap or belt, to put a belt through the loops in your pants, or even just pulling up your pants. If that bothers your shoulder, you want to avoid activities like that.

Think of it this way. If you have an injured rotator cuff, like torn rotator cuff tendon, then every time you go to do something that hurts it, it’s like you are picking a scab. If you think of a scab and you are scratching it, pick it, it hurts when you pick it, or if you pick it in hard enough, it’s going to  bleed, and it has to go through a healing process all over again, which delays your skin from healing all the way.

Of course, you don’t get a scab inside the rotator cuff tendon, but the concept is the same. If you are doing things to aggravate it, like pulling up your pants when you shouldn’t be using that arm or reaching behind you to scratch an itch. Then if you do it hard enough, and you do it often enough, you are going to be aggravating that tear. With that said, you have to take it easy, you have to do relative rest.

Try to avoid lying on that side too. Try to avoid anything that hurts that shoulder so that you can allow it to heal as fast as possible. This isn’t the case, always just at the beginning phases when you are dealing with a very painful rotator cuff problem.

The Second Tip Is To Wear A Shoulder Sling.

I’m talking about those pieces of cloth that your arm sits in, and they have a strap that comes around your neck and attaches to the other side of that cloth. You could usually cinch it up and shove your shoulder up. They hand these out in the emergency room if you have a shoulder arm injury, but they are available at all your little convenience stores like Walgreens, CVS, and a lot of times they have them at grocery stores as well and you can get them at big department stores very easily too They are quite cheap, you should be able to find one for under $20, maybe a little higher for about $30, and they are a lifesaver if you have a rotator cuff problem. Go get one as soon as you can put yourself in it.

The idea is to reduce how often you are using your shoulder. To help you out with tip one, the relative rests concept, because the fact that your arm is in a sling, you just aren’t going to reach out to do things like you normally would. But the other thing that you want to do with it, is make sure you tighten it up enough to literally shove your arm up a bit.

You need that to happen because at the shoulder joint where the rotator cuff tendons are, if you get an injury to rotator cuff tendon, the tendon is what connects the rotator cuff muscle to the bone that muscles not going to function normally. The weight of your arm hanging down begins to aggravate the tissues, the tendons and rotator cuff muscles themselves. If you can offload the rotator cuff muscles and tendons by using that sling, then you can begin to heal faster. So, go get that sling!

You wouldn’t wear it constantly, you would just wear it throughout the day for periods of time. I tell people to start out wearing it an hour or two at a time. Take it off if you have to use your arm for certain things. Or if you know that you are just going to be relaxing and not doing anything. For example, if you are going to just watch a movie at home, and your arm isn’t really bothering you during that time, no need to wear the sling. But if you are going to be out doing chores, running errands, and you might inadvertently reach for that car door, that that door to the building, and hurt your shoulder, get in that sling. Just to give you that support and prevent you from reaching out and doing things that might aggravate that shoulder.

Tip Number Three, Avoid Direct Rotator Cuff Exercises.

As a physical therapist I’ve seen every rotator cuff exercise ever thought of. The most common one is the one where you might hold a rubber band, or some rope, or cable with weights attached to it on the other end. Where the person stands with their elbow pressed up against their body, or right nearby, and they push their hand out and in, and then they’ll turn around and then they’ll pull from the other direction as well.

The concept with this exercise is that when you rotate your arm in that way, it isolates the rotator cuff muscles. But think about it. If you have a very painful shoulder, it may not be a good idea to tension a muscle that’s potentially torn, or the tendon from it is potentially torn. That exercise has its place. It’s just not a good exercise to use at the very beginning of a rotator cuff tear. It can potentially make it worse. That exercise really should be used in a small timeframe of healing a rotator cuff problem. It really doesn’t need to be done for very much at all. In fact, some people can get away with never doing that exercise and heal just fine.

Tip Number Four, Strengthen Your Grip.

Have you ever seen one of these Grip-Strengthening tools before? These are great, I love them. I love these adjustable ones that we have here in the clinic as well. You can change the tension. There is some awesome scientific research, and we see it happening in the clinic all the time. Whenever we are helping people out with a rotator cuff problem, where if you strengthen your grip, you can actually do some good stuff in the rotator cuff muscles.

There is a nerve connection between your grip in your hand and the muscles of the rotator cuff. Because the rotator cuff muscles are designed to create a lot of stability in the shoulder, so when you go to grab something with your hand, you need that stability up in the shoulder so you can indirectly rehabilitate. When you get better function in the muscles, you get better nerve connections to the muscles up in the shoulder by strengthening your grip.

If you think you have a fresh rotator cuff tear, like you felt a pop, or a snap, or just sort of hurting really bad all of a sudden, it is a good idea to start working on your grip strength right away. If you have ever had your grip strength measured, as long as you don’t have a hand injury, if you are just dealing with a rotator cuff problem, most people can have some decent grip. You might be able to grip at least 20, 30, 40 pounds 60, 70 or more is better than that.

There are ways to measure it at a physical therapist office, you can easily get measured. But oftentimes people will go pursue to strengthen their grip, but they go pursue one of those squishy balls or there is special hand grip strengthening putty as well, and that’s really good. If you have a hand injury and you can’t really strengthen beyond more than 5 or 10 pounds, then that’s a good starting point. But if you have a shoulder injury, not a direct hand injury, you are going to need something more substantial so that you can strengthen past 20, 30, 40, or 50 pounds.

This one here goes up to 90 pounds, and they make more resistive ones as well. The can go up to 150, 160 pounds, and there are some that are fixed that don’t have an adjustment, that you can buy, and there are even more. I don’t know that you would need to, but what I’m getting at is the putty isn’t going to cut it, if you have a shoulder problem. Those little stress reliever balls aren’t going to cut it either. That’s just not enough force. You need something like this to adequately strengthen your grip and get the effect that you are looking for to calm down the rotator cuff muscles, and tendons to allow your rotator cuff tendons, and rotator cuff muscles to heal for the long term.

The Fifth Tip Is To Heal Your Rotator Cuff Tendons Naturally Is To Work On Your Shrugging.

When I talk about shrugging, I’m talking about the muscles that make you pick up your shoulders. Those muscles attached from your neck and they pass through this area right here and come down to your shoulder blade at the top and collarbone as well. Here in the clinic, we have an entire progression. We go in depth into strengthen these muscles and using them in normal everyday motions. But if you are just starting at home, to fix your rotator cuff problem, the simplest thing to do is just to pick up your shoulders, make sure that your head and neck is comfortable, and hold it there for 10 to 20 seconds.

It shouldn’t hurt your shoulder, but if it does you might have some other issue on top of the rotator cuff problem that’s preventing you from being able to do this normally. You want to get some help if that’s the case. But if you are okay to shrug, hold it for 10 to 20 seconds and I would do three, four or five reps of that every hour, until that starts to calm down more and more. If you want to make it a bit more challenging, because this is very doable for you, begin to raise up your hands as you shrug, and you can go up as much as you feel comfortable without beginning to set off that shoulder pain, that you are dealing with right now. So, get stronger in your struggle muscles.

The Sixth Tip That I Highly Recommend On How To Heal A Rotator Cuff Injury Naturally Without Surgery Is To Get Expert Help.

Somebody who’s a specialist in helping rotator cuff problems without surgery, injections or medications is your best bet. We do that here in the clinic. The reason why I’m recommending this is because not every rotator cuff or tendon problem is the same, it differs from individual to individual. There are small differences that require a specialist to look at them and analyze that and carry them through the process of fixing a rotator cuff problem naturally.

The tips that I’ve given you before this one, are just good starting points. That’s really the best I can give you through a video or the internet like this. But it is extremely beneficial. It’s going to save you so much time, so much money, so much heartache, and loss of quality of life, if you just get some expert help, so that you can get this shoulder problem on the right track and heal without having to face some surgeon to heal this problem later on.

But even then, if you do have surgery, if you have had surgery, if you are looking at this video right now, and you think you have a rotator cuff tear again, and you had a surgery, years back, it’s important to get expert help on how to fix the root of the problem. Because there is usually some underlying root problem, that got you to the point of having this rotator cuff tear. That’s what needs to be addressed by an expert who knows how to address these issues naturally.

I highly recommend go find a specialist that can help you with your rotator cuff problem. I hope that you can end your shoulder problems super-fast and get to the right help and avoid having an unnecessary surgery, avoid relying on medications or injections.

If you want to learn more about how to fix shoulder problems and visit us on YouTube so you can get access to more shoulder tips, and more helpful information on how to naturally fix shoulder problems. I wish you the best of luck. Have a great day.