r/RotatorCuff

Like the title says. My doctor wants me to do just PT and not surgery. Curious to know if others out there have gone the same path and made progress and/or healed.

I had repair of infraspinatus, supraspinatus. I had full tear of subscapularis repaired. I had labral tears repaired and biceps tenodesis. Ive done everything exactly as ordered but am still having 6-7 pain all day and occasional 8 pain. Doing pendulum, using the squeeze ball, ice, pain meds, etc. What can I do to decrease this pain?

I’ve had recurring right shoulder pain for a while, especially when and/or after sleeping on that side. After playing tennis yesterday, it flared up.
The pain is dull and localized to the outside of the shoulder, around where the upper arm meets the shoulder. I have no limitation in range of motion.
Could this be a rotator cuff issue or bursitis?
For those who’ve experienced something similar:
What helped you recover?
Which exercises or treatments worked?
How long did you stop playing tennis?
Appreciate any advice!

I’m having my second rotator cuff surgery. I had a great recliner for the first one, and it made a huge difference. Unfortunately, I can’t get it into my current house.
Has anyone had really good success with alternatives? Wedge pillows, adjustable beds, or something else? Especially interested in what worked for sleeping.

I had rotator cuff surgery 15 months ago and then I had a revision surgery to clean up some of the stitches, labrum tear, and some fraying about 4 weeks ago.

I’m still having pain, but mostly when I’m sleeping at night (I sleep on my stomach with a pillow under that arm.)

The pain seems to get better when I work out the muscle a lot and I’ve been rehabbing it a lot at the gym. Does anybody know what could be going on or had a similar experience?

I’m at 6-7 weeks post PRP. Doing shockwave and PT. At night I’m really struggling still. I wake because it’s so stiff, almost like it needs to crack. It’s not as bad during the day, but the pain from stiffness at night is incredibly tough. Anyone else experiencing this stiffness? Almost a locking up at night?

Right after Thanksgiving in 2025, I joined OTF with a premier, unlimited classes membership. Whatever concern or reservations I had about doing high intensity interval training quickly faded once I started going to classes literally every other day for the next 10 months, all the way up to late August 2026. I attended 153 classes in just about 300 days, and average of going to OTF once every other day. I burned 88,000 cal. I went from 18% body fat and 86% muscle mass down to 13.8% body fat and 91.1% muscle mass.

Sometime in early August, working out and or life caused me to have a seriously strained shoulder/rotator cuff and I stopped going to OTF, saw an orthopedic specialist, had x-rays taken, and they came back negative, and started physical therapy on my rotator cuff area. While I occasionally miss working out and the overall positive feeling that OTF provides, part of me doesn’t miss it and feels like maybe I should walk away at this time. Looking at my stats and percentages and body composition, I don’t think there’s much more body fat to lose, much more muscle mass to gain on a very lean and athletic 183 pound frame and therefore, not many more goals to set. I am open to anyone’s suggestions who might have felt the same way at some point during their OTF experience. Thank you.

Hello All,

Back in May, I was rock climbing consistently and after a session, my shoulder hurt a lot that night and into the next day. I started going to PT for it a week later and they said it was likely a rotator cuff injury so they gave me exercises and stretches. I was consistent with them exercises but I wasn’t seeing any progress. My job at the time had me lifting heavy boxes so that might have been why it wasn’t getting better.

I got a new job two months ago that didn’t require any lifting and I stopped doing PT and my exercises when I started that job. I really want my shoulder to heal so I can get back to climbing so I went to an orthopedic shoulder doctor and they took an X-ray and said everything looks good and that it’s likely rotator cuff related. So about a week and a half ago I started going to PT again and they pretty much gave me to same exercises and I have been consistently doing them. My shoulder seems like it is getting worse because before I didn’t feel any pain on a daily basis, I only felt pain when/if I tried to work out my shoulder lifting weights or doing push ups, etc.

Now I feel sharp pain in my shoulder when I simply raise my arm straight up or move it in a certain way. Does any one have any tips or tricks of how to properly heal my shoulder? Did this happen to you where it got worse somehow? Is it supposed to feel worse before it begins feeling better? I just need some support or advice because I am feeling a bit pessimistic about this and I was hoping my shoulder would be healed by Thanksgiving-ish or at the latest early December.

Thank you in advance for your replies!

Background; I’ve been having pain in my right shoulder (dominant side) for over a year now. It started during a workout, where I felt a sharp pain during a shoulder press. I was already in PT for my neck pain and generally dealing with a lot, and the pain wasn’t too bad, so I just left it alone and figured it would feel better if I rested it. It was fine for a bit, but the last few months the pain has gotten a lot worse.

I saw a shoulder doc and did 3 months PT with minimal to no improvement, then went for MRI which showed a bursal sided partial tear in the supraspinatus tendon (from radiology report: “the erosion on the tendons bursal surface measures 8 x 8 mm in diameter, involving estimated 20% tendon thickness”). There’s also a small bone spur pressing down on the tendon.

The shoulder specialist says he’s confident the tear is what’s causing my pain (and I am too) but because I also have some issues with my neck, although that predates my shoulder pain which began during a specific incident (bulging discs and stenosis from C4–C6), the shoulder doc wants to confirm my neck is not causing my shoulder pain before potentially doing anything invasive like surgery.

So we are going to start with a steroid injection in the shoulder, which will hopefully help with the pain at least in the short term and also serve as a diagnostic tool to make sure it’s not my neck creating this pain.

But, if the steroid helps and then the pain returns, I need to decide whether to proceed with surgery or not to repair the tear.

He says there’s a chance that with a combination of the steroid injection bringing down the inflammation and continued PT, my shoulder could get better on its own or at least get to a place where I decide I can live with it. If that doesn’t happen, he says he can’t recommend continuing steroid injections because it’s not healthy for the tissue. So it seems my options at that point would be A) surgery or B) PRP injections and continuing PT.

I’m not there yet, because I haven’t even gotten the steroid injection yet, but I’m just trying to weigh my options in case a few weeks/months after the injection my pain comes back at the same level where it is now. So basically I’m just curious about anyone’s experience with these options for a similar tear as mine, a small bursal sided supraspinatus tendon tear.

Question if anyone can help please? Hi I had a subacromial decompression and ac joint excision two weeks ago. Have been recovering slowly with range of motion a touch better each day though still can’t get my arm overhead or anything like that and still much worse than pre surgery. The last two days my shoulder has been feeling stiffer and more locked in surrounding area. Is this normal? Obviously I’m worried about developing fs and trying to both do the pendulum/range or motion exercises they gave me daily and also not overdo it. I’m taking normal anti inflammatory and painkillers. Thanks

3 weeks post-op and going mostly well, except for sleep. I am permitted to remove the sling when relaxing around the house, provided I don't use the arm. I am supposed to continue using the sling to sleep, which I understand for protective purposes. The recliner got uncomfortable pretty quickly, so I've moved back to bed with a pregnancy pillow. I am allowed to lie flat, but that's not really comfortable yet. I mostly sleep on my non-operative side. Because I have the buffer of the pregnancy pillow holding me in place, I am not concerned about rolling over onto my surgery arm. I would 100% order one of those expensive shoulder sleeper pillows, but their shipping takes forever (2 weeks). Has anyone had success with an Amazon pillow? No, I didn't get clearance from my doctor, but I just cannot keep doing the sling at night. I am a small person, so the block "pillow" of the sling is causing pain. I was looking at this one: https://www.amazon.com/Muwago-Shoulder-Impingement-Replacement-Collarbone/dp/B0HJ7VRQN4/ref=sr_1_8?channelId=510&clpRedir=Y&content-id=amzn1.sym.48c6b427-a259-44b4-afc3-8cb0f0dbcf97%3Aamzn1.sym.48c6b427-a259-44b4-afc3-8cb0f0dbcf97&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Eh71t0UN3X-KrXQ6V821Pt81cqCLNe8G1tWkycX712RTAVUd7xXiOtBMdwKlj2DHilKED4IdaMWbLSZ05AizZ0-i-E00jW2MYx7888FsZmmFVXHi4WC-c_AKp32KTzff3SC5PhpnW0yoZmlxGgrBlsYNQc57E3lKjIK_XnM3aOURitO6B1qOGmMfs3hoWJX7IORufCrHM4psPSX-8VZ9bS-7vsTgKYaOjI9xm4TtFKioJJx58tGK2hfF_jHGGeR0zTAIJmC2QytSxVe0H5JlZo4_XsN4KJyPIKzez6VqFlQ.18vJThXQSO0RukF1pt_vYatXl-9kt_NSf1hesOKnb7U&dib_tag=se&keywords=rotator%2Bcuff%2Bsurgery%2Bpillow&pd_rd_i=rotator%2Bcuff%2Bsurgery%2Bpillow&pd_rd_r=eae04d1c-a9f7-436f-b79e-659e050b578d&pd_rd_w=UWERg&pd_rd_wg=p8e1h&plpRedirect=mhFallback&qid=1791043701&sr=8-8&th=1