Need a right Dx

[Robyn1772]

Hi, I am 22 and have lived with chronic right shoulder pain for over 3 years now. I have beed dx with brusitis, shoulder instability, snapping scapula, lax ligaments and winged scapula. I have had a surgery to shorten my right shoulder ligaments.I have seen many different ortho docs and been to pt. I was wondering if i should seek help from another kind of specialist. Just wondering your input thanks.
Robyn

[Michael L Gross, MD]

From what youv'e said, it sounds as if the operation was not successful.  Your symptoms are those of an unstable shoulder.  Often times, as the shoulder becomes more lax, there is a traction injury to the brachial plexus, the nerves that travel down your arm, causing numbness in the ring finger and pinky.  When reason for failure after surgery can be a generalized ligamentous laxity.  In other words, are your other joints loose, as well? Another reason could be inadequate immobilization postoperatively, I require patients to wear a shoulder immobilzer full time for 6 weeks after surgery.  Finally, I would want to make sure that your symptoms are purely from your shoulder and not your neck. Three tests might be helpful at this point: an MRI arthrogram of your shoulder, a non-contrast MRI of your neck, and an EMG.

[Robyn1772]

About three years ago I started getting severe pain in my right shoulder blade area. I have never had anything tramatic happen to me or my shoulder. A little while later it developed into  grinding and popping sounds. Then after that my whole right arm would feel so tired like i had been throwing footballs all day. It even felt tired when it would rest in my lap or on a pillow. I started getting tingling sensations down the underside of my right arm ending at my pinky and ring finger, this tingling sensation is now  almost always there. The pain is defentily my number one concern, as I do have a two year old that I can't pick up with my right arm. The pain doesn't intensify if i move my arm any certain way, its just always there, always. I sleep on a heating pad every night to help get some relief, but since it has an automatic shutoff, I wake up several times throughout the night to turn it back on. After I had the surgery, before i even took off the sling everyone of my symptoms had returned tenfold. I have also seen three doctors who specialize in shoulders and one who didn't.
Thanks for your input

[Michael L Gross, MD]

The surgery you had was to correct shoulder instabilty. What exactly are your symptoms? You haven't mentioned what the symptoms were either before or after surgery, was there an injury, and in what order those diagnosis were made. Did the scapula issues begin after surgery or before?  As such, I cannot give you that much insight.
However, you did ask one question which I can try to answer.  There are orthopedic surgeons, who limit their practice to the treatment of the shoulder.  If you haven't done so already, i would seek care from one near you, rather than from a general orthopedist.