BBM,
I’ve dislocated my left shoulder (“momentary” dislocations, never had to punch it back into the socket) at least 10 times over the years, to estimate the minimum very conservatively.
I’ve never had it diagnosed.
When these dislocations happen (e.g. from catching a punch on the elbow, “tweaking” the shoulder with the most leverage possible, while not keeping a tight guard i.e., shrugging appropriately, but instead letting the arm “hang”, or throwing hooks of my own, or doing other goofy stuff), an average level of “sharp pain”, as well as an unsettling numb feeling where the shoulder and arm feel “dead” (sorry about the amateurish terms), usually ensue. All the unpleasant sensations often disappear within hours.
When they occur, I tend to take the rest of the day, and possibly the next day, off from any non-everyday physical activity. If, for instance, there’s a bench session three days later, I normally bench as usual, and try to forget that anything ever happened.
My reason for never having looked it up is the tendency of the symptoms to not persist for very long at all.
About 10 days ago, I woke up with my left arm in a really weird, I suppose highly loaded, position, and had a very numb shoulder. The numbness persisted for a couple of hours and thus I wondered “what now?”. Of course I remained unfazed and looked forward to training (thanks). Today, as with all days following that sleep session, the numbness varies, and I’ve of course kept training (home workouts with dumbbells (rows, presses, squats, etc)). I’ve used my normal weights on all exercises (e.g. presses with 90lb dumbbells, 3x8, repRPE7-8). The only exercise that seems to “provoke” the shoulder, is the row – the left shoulder clicks during some sets, whereas it hadn’t before the current state of affairs. Workouts feel good overall, but, once again, numbness varies. Before that one sleep session, I almost never had any numbness emerge spontaneously, at least not for weeks on end as is currently the case. And, several times a day, I find myself feeling the shoulder to be “locked”, “stick in the wheel”, and I’ve found that a violent shrug “breaks the stick” and “unlocks” the shoulder, with a loud pop.
So, should I decrease weight/volume/frequency on any exercises?
And, can any intelligent speculation be done here regarding tissue damage? Is tissue damage being the cause of pain (the “bio” aspect of it) as (un)probable/(un)knowable in my case as in any other? I get that people with tissue damage can be asymptomatic, and that pain experiences consist of multiple factors… but, what are your thoughts? Is it likely that my shoulder is damaged somewhat, in a way that causes symptoms, that is? I mean, is it more likely than in the case of someone without a history of shoulder injuries? Can anything at all be said, or guessed, about the ‘bio’ aspect of my current experience, given my history? This is mostly out of curiosity. I’ve read most of your articles relevant to this. But I’m still not quite clear on what exactly, if anything, can be said about the ‘bio’ aspect of pain, in the sense of establishing a relationship between pain and tissue in some specific case… obviously a specific case is specific, but… like, someone may tweak their back deadlifting and see an abnormality in a subsequent MRI; well, that abnormality might’ve existed prior to the tweak. So, when, if ever, can we know, or be reasonably justified in believing, that damaged tissue is causing, or contributing to, a pain experience, aside from a deep cut or snapped tibia or something? I might’ve not been clear about what I’m trying to ask in this paragraph, but hopefully you get the idea.
Male, 25 yo