: Hi,
: I don't know if I can help you except commiserate. I have had my right arm
: half out of its socket and had a mass of torn muscles in my arm and
: shoulder. I didn't get anything done at first either. I let it heal,
: worked my arm and shoulder gently till I had all my movement back etc.
: Then I painted a building out and my shoulder flared up again. I went to
: the doctor and got some medications and it settled down. Fast forward
: several years with the pain always there on the periphery so I went to see
: a sports physiotherapist. He gave me some exercises to do to strengthen my
: shoulder, but said not much more could be done except surgery, but then I
: would lose some mobility of the shoulder. I went to the library and found
: a book on sports injuries and read up on it. I learned that torn muscles
: can bind to each other and that can cause pain. This binding is a form of
: scar tissue and can be broken without causing more damage. This seemed to
: be something like I was feeling, so I got my son to lean his elbow hard on
: all the places where I felt pain and after the pain of that had passed 90%
: of the residual and peripheral pain had disappeared also. The end result
: is that after 9 years I'm back to where I want to be almost. What I
: discovered was that much of the pain I experienced over the years was due
: to torn muscles being bound to their neighbour and once these had been
: separated they could work freely again and not cause pain. Hopefully of
: some help.
: JohnK
I can offer a word of encouragement from my famiy's story.

Both my mo and aunt had similar injuries to their shoulders. They were at least in their 70's at the time. Both were given exercises to do. My mom went at it with gusto and recovered full range of motion. My aunt was happy with being able to get her hands up to her mid chest area. She needed help dressing the rest of her life, but she was OK with that. My mom would do 20 reps of the exercise if they told her to do 15.

I have some wonderful stories about the help acupuncture and acupressure has given some folks. It has helped my mom later in life with artheritis--she is now 92 and still lives in her own home.

Get as many opinions as you can and consider the non-traditional medicine as well.
Good luck.

(pardon my poor spelling and typing)