coming up 3 weeks ago i took an untimely departure from my bike, hitting a tree with my shoulder. one v painful drive home and a trip to a&e revealed nothing broken, but an appointment 9 days later with a soft tissue clinic. no recovery tips, jst painkillers.

went to the tissue clinic – grade 1-2 separation of the shoulder (is it the ACL ligament or something?). he gave me some basic physio exercises but nothing other than a generic shoulder injury pamphlet.

A fair proportion of my job is physical, and currently i’m office bound. in 4 weeks i have a 10 day trip where i will need full use of my shoulder – it’s the most important trip of the year i cannot miss. my shoulder is a lot better, but things like putting socks on still causes a reasonable (4 on a 1-10 scale) amount of pain.

is it worth me seeing a private sports physio? will they be able to give me a more targeted recovery plan?? sounds like work might be happy to cover the costs.

That last sentence makes it a no brainer mate!

yeah, i guess – i need to check on that, but don’t want to bother if there’s nowt i can do but wait for it to recover itself

Yes and yes. Especially if work are going to help paying. But critically if you’re given exercises DO THEM!! Daily and completely.

Are you doing the exercises?

he said to give it a week or so before doing so, but plan to do them (plus getting on the turbo) once back from my current trip.

Separated mine Grade 2-3 in Sep.

SEE THE PHYSIO.
NHS were useless for me. Advice from fracture clinic consultant was pop it in a sling, which is total nonsense.
Physio made the recovery much quicker, improved range of motion quickly and reduced pain.

TBH you’ve no chance of full use of your shoulder in 4 weeks time, it’ll just blow again if you put any serious strain on it. 10 weeks + is more like the period before full use / load can be applied

I did mine in 2002, saw a physio, who basically told me to keep it moving, (the hospital wanted to put it in a sling for 4 weeks!). You need a theraband and a light dumbbell weight and just do light repetitive stretching exercises. The theraband, (basically a big elastic band), can be gradually tensioned to put more load into the shoulder.

Like you I had a big holiday 4 weeks after doing mine and I blew it actually picking a suitcase up in the hotel!!