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Are You Suffering From a Work Injury?

Your rotator cuff offers the greatest range of motion of any joint in your body. It is made up of muscles and tendons in the shoulder which connect your upper arm bone with your shoulder blade. The tendons and muscles can be injured due to using your arm to falling, lifting or pulling an object that is too heavy or improperly lifting something overhead causing strain. Repetitive stress on the shoulder such as overhead movements can stress your rotator cuff muscles causing inflammation and possibly tearing them.

There are certain risk factors that you may not be able to avoid such as:

Age- As you get older wear and tear on your rotator cuff may cause a breakdown of fibrous protein in the tendons and muscles which makes you more prone to this type of injury.

Working in construction trades- People who are employed as carpenters or painters perform repetitive motions at their jobs daily, with a lot of these being performed overhead. This increases their risk of a rotator cuff injury.

If you are over 40 and work at a job that requires you to perform a lot of overhead duties or do repetitive motions, you may be at an even greater risk than most people. There are certain precautions you can take to help prevent this type of injury.

• Do regular shoulder exercises
• Take frequent breaks from using your shoulder at work
• Rest your shoulder
• Apply cold packs or heating pads when you notice or experience any kind of shoulder pain or inflammation

You can also take pain relievers such as aspirin, ibuprofen or whatever works best for you when you have pain. You can also try to keep your muscles limber by doing light exercises.

If you believe you have a rotator cuff injury, let your employer and doctors know. They will need to examine you and perform x-rays, an MRI, or an ultrasound scan to better diagnose you. Your doctor will then most likely discuss treatment options with you. There are various ways to treat a torn rotator cuff. Doing exercises and therapy on the injured area will help heal it and improve the range of motion and strength in your shoulder. Depending on how severe your injury was it could take anywhere from 3 weeks to several months for this to help heal your injury.

Surgical Treatment Options:

Steroid Injections- These injections can help reduce pain and are generally done in patients who are older or aren’t good candidates for surgery. Your doctor may also have you try injections if therapy isn’t helping your symptoms get any better.

Rotator Cuff Repair- This surgery is typically done in younger people because they are more likely to have little or no degeneration or impingement of their tendons. If you have tried physical therapy and your symptoms don’t improve or if you have a rotator cuff tear that was caused by a sudden injury, suffer from severe pain, or have loss of shoulder strength and/or movement then this type of surgery could be right for you. You should know that having surgery won’t repair all the damage.

Arthroplasty- This procedure is for people who have extreme difficulties with their shoulder including having arthritis in the joints or multiple tears of the muscles and tendons. If you have had extensive rotator cuff tears and no other treatment has previously worked for you, this might be something your doctor may recommend.

Learn more about how to deal with your work injury:
Visit our Injured Iowan Website
Watch a video about dealing with your work injury claim
Request a Free copy of our Iowa Workers’ Compensation Book
Contact Walker, Billingsley & Bair about a free consultation

Why offer a Free Book? I have represented hundreds of Iowans hurt at work and have seen too many clients make mistakes before they had the “right” information resulting in them losing thousands of dollars. Finally, you can learn about work injuries in the comfort of your own home with no risk or obligation.