Shoulders popping

I've found with my healthcare providers that I have to be somewhat assertive or I'll just get some ointment and a recommendation to stop climbing forever, so while I have my suspicions what's wrong, I'm here looking for some armchair differential diagnoses before my appointment.

2 separate occurrences since January (both L and R, about 2 months apart) of shoulders popping/shifting with pain while climbing. Both involved a gaston type movement. One with my hand in front of my face, but the move was powerful. The other with my hand high overhead, but on a steep slab. Both are still sore in general, but I can move them about 90% of my ROM without serious pain. Anyone here experienced anything like this?

yup and gaston movements are often horrendous on shoulders. Its very likely you have caused some form of minor labral strain or tear. They take forever to heal or not heal. You'll need to follow strengthening exercises. Avoid that type of movement for a few more months and keep climbing. Keep doing moves that aggrevate it and and you'll eventual end up needing surgery. Pretty simple.

Im in the same boat after scraping ice and moving snow all winter, its getting better but Im still limited to climbing strait on without too much turning to the side. Band therapy, stretches and total warm up helps a ton. Yoga seems like a really good one too but there isnt much to choose from where Im at.

Sounds like you experienced two shoulder subluxations and/or the beginning of chronic instability.  Everyone's advice upthread is pretty good.  I'd add that you should visit a PT to get a specific set of exercises for what you're dealing with.  Copying and pasting random exercises you get from the internet can be hit or miss and you don't want to miss with this one.

Thank you all for your replies. I just found the Hooper's Beta page yesterday and will give his exercises a try. I got a PT appointment a month from now, so hopefully they'll be able to get me a definitive diagnosis, but sublaxations are what I was thinking too. I was hitting the bands pretty hard after the first one (right side) in January, so I was surprised at the second one (left side) in March... either incredibly unlucky or maybe I've been doing it wrong I guess.

I have shoulder instability/scapular winging from two different subluxations (one in each shoulder) a month apart. It was dumb to keep climbing in between. I’m still dealing with it a couple of years later and it’s definitely limiting. Good thing you’re going to PT. I wish I would have done the MRI back then, I still haven’t. 

Bryanwrote:

I have shoulder instability/scapular winging from two different subluxations (one in each shoulder) a month apart. It was dumb to keep climbing in between. I’m still dealing with it a couple of years later and it’s definitely limiting. Good thing you’re going to PT. I wish I would have done the MRI back then, I still haven’t. 

Definitely get on that. I finally went to the doctor today for mine and I messed it up really bad from waiting so long and enduring multiple subluxations. Now I might have to have an open surgery with bone work instead of an arthroscopic one.

Anthony Balestreriwrote:

Definitely get on that. I finally went to the doctor today for mine and I messed it up really bad from waiting so long and enduring multiple subluxations. Now I might have to have an open surgery with bone work instead of an arthroscopic one.

Thanks and sorry to hear about your situation. I didn’t realize there were 2 different types of surgery one may need. Did you get that diagnosed from the MRI? I did go to PT for maybe 5 sessions and got exercises but most of the stuff was with really low weight or just resistance bands. I stopped going and may go back again but am feeling like I really need to focus on strength training for them. 

5 sessions... mmmm. Unfortunately, strengthening your shoulder will probably be months, if not, the rest of your life, long commitment. Takes some dedication. A few sessions won't do anything.

JaNinja Bwrote:

5 sessions... mmmm. Unfortunately, strengthening your shoulder will probably be months, if not, the rest of your life, long commitment. Takes some dedication. A few sessions won't do anything.

Just to clarify, I went to 5 or 6 official PT sessions and got exercises and with the blessing of my PT continued those exercises religiously (mostly band work with some lat pull-downs) for months afterwards and still work on shoulder strengthening to this day. 

Sounds good. hopefully it works out. Took well over a year for me and have to continually keep it up.

Bryanwrote:

Thanks and sorry to hear about your situation. I didn’t realize there were 2 different types of surgery one may need. Did you get that diagnosed from the MRI? I did go to PT for maybe 5 sessions and got exercises but most of the stuff was with really low weight or just resistance bands. I stopped going and may go back again but am feeling like I really need to focus on strength training for them. 

He diagnosed the bone loss from an xray. Im getting an MRI next week. Basically, the standard surgery is they pin down your labrum to the glenoid bone with one or more anchors. But if you have had multiple dislocations that have wittled down the socket bone (glenoid), they may also do a procedure at the same time where they fuse additional bone with screws to the socket to further stabilize the joint. The bone can either come from your body (larajet or there is another one Ive heard of where the bone comes from somewhere else in the body) or from a cadavers tibia bone because the curvature mimicks that of the shoulder socket (that was the one he recommended). If they have to augment your shoulder socket, that must be done through open surgery rather than arthroscopically. From what I have read, if the bone loss is greater than about 13%, your failure rate is going to be much higher if you dont augment the shoulder socket with additional bone.