Joints

[hampton1958]

I suffer from golfers elbow shoulder problems and crunching sounds from my bones between my shoulder blades. Cannot take anti flams. They didnt work anyway. Any advice out there

[earthwitch]

if you have a lot of joints affected its probably worth asking for a referral to a rheumatologist to rule out enthesitis (inflammation at the point where tendons join onto bone) that goes along with spondyloarthritis, or one of the other inflammatory arthritises.

One thing that it seems better to avoid is having steroid injections into the tendons. While they have been used a lot in the past by doctors, and they do give good relief initially, there is growing evidence that steroids injected into tendons can later lead to tendon rupture (which can be very difficult to fix surgically). I think there are other things that can be injected into tendons, but not sure if GPs have those available or if you need to see an orthopaedic specialist.

Did you take the antiinflamms regularly? For them to really work you do need to take them at full dose and continuously (at least until the inflammation has subsided)- not just for pain. If you can't take them now, but wanted to try something similar, you can achieve a similar result with regular use of NSAID gel (like voltarol gel). You can even buy an extra strength long action voltaren gel that you only need to put on twice a day. From my experience, it works best where the affected area is close to the skin, and when used absolutely regularly for a week or more. A single application does very little for me.

[hampton1958 in reply to earthwitch]

Ive tried anti flams for many years. All they gave me was stomach and heartburn problems. I think i will try a high dosage of creams and ask the gp for physio and ultra sound. I used to be a goal keeper and the years of falling on hard ground has finally taken its course. Thanks for advice

[Bananas5]

I suffered with golfer's elbow for years. My then GP would inject regularly which did give relief. When we moved I was told the new practice didn't do injections and referred me to physio.

Physio did amazing things. Exercise and ultra sound. It worked and I have been pain free for over 3 years.

The golfer's elbow was caused by years of gardening! In particular using shears or loppers.

Pat x

[hampton1958 in reply to Bananas5]

Thanks for this. Yes its time for my gp to refer me for physio and ultra sound. Thanks for the sound advice

[johnsmith]

You are going to need a combination of things.

See a physio and an Alexander Teacher.

The physio will hopefully look at how you are using your muscles and maybe prescribe some exercises. You have to be careful here as a lot of NHS physios use a one size fits all approach which is not always helpful.

The hand, wrist and elbow connecting muscles do not always move independently of each other. The upshot of this is that tight muscles in the forearm can feedback into the shoulder and cause the muscles in the shoulder to miss-function. This occurs through spinal reflexes and other factors. Work needs to be done to enable free movement of the hand and wrist. Yoga teachers may know exercises which may help with this.

An Alexander Teacher will enable you to be more aware of how you use your body so that you can develop your own experiments to determine what works and what does not in regard to some of the things that are affecting your shoulder muscles.

Hope this helps