ruptured latissimus and teres major muscle

[eseybold]

I am looking for any other waterskier who may have ruptured his/her latissimus and or teres major muscle while skiing. I am an orthopedic surgeon and I ruptured mine 2 months ago going around 5 ball @32 off.  I want to know if anyone else out there has had the same injury and what they did while skiing  to compenate for the injury and subsequent loss of strength. Thanks.  I am left foot forward and it is my left arm.  

 

Eric

[MrJones]

Eseybold,

I have not had the injury myself, but my wife did last summer and as a PT I was involved in her Dx and Rx. For referrence she is also LFF and took a hit out of 2 at 32 off.

First, her's was not a complete rupture. It would be characterized as a GII tear of the Teres insertion. There was edema there on the MRI, but no evidence of a complete rupture.

 It happened about 2 weeks before regionals and she was really wanting to ski as it was her last year in W2. She progressed well with her rehab in clinic, but struggled trying to get back on the water. Actually getting out of the water was the most painful thing. She was trying to get up almost one handed. When she did get up she had problems taking any load on that side. Primarily out of 1-3-5.

In the end she needed the off season to heal up. This is a bit of an uncommon injury and I was surprised how long it took to get over. She did not really do enough stretching and strengthening over the winter (hate non-compliant patients don't you) and was still sore in the Spring. My advice is be patient with your return especially if your tear was worse.

sj  

[ForrestGump]

Ouch. Sorry to hear that. I had a GII rupture of my rhomboid major last August while skiing(lff, 5 ball at 28 was tired and took a hit I should've let go)  I took 6 weeks off after the injury and then 3 months off over the winter and I feel as if I really probably needed 6 months off from skiing. Or more. I was really suprised at how long those upper back muscles take to heal. It doesn't stop me from doing anything. But I feel that spot every day and it's been over 13 months.

 Eric, Being that you're an ortho, does having an injury like this change your perspective on your treatment of your patients? Just curious.

[eseybold]

  Guys,

     Thanks for the information. At my injury I separated my right AC joint and ruptured my teres/lat on the left at the same time. I took no time off. I tried skiing the next day and yes....getting out of the water was a killer.I skied every day through the pain - skied poorly...... Two weeks later we had a clinic with Lucky Lowe and he saw me ski and recommended that I switch my grip to a right foot forward grip. Since that time my pain has left my shoulder but my biceps and brachiradialis muscles are absolutely killing me. I cannot crank my onside turn any more. I look forward to the off season. I am opting to not have it surgically repaired. Needless to say, as  surgeon this makes me  really empathetic toward the weekend warriors that I treat. I have also learned that if you are late for a bouy(which I was - it was a tournament) just let it go........it is not worth it. Heres to safe and fun but still competitive skiing !

eric

[jhughes]

I have suffered some sort of Teres Major/Minor inflammation or injury of some sort recently. I have not had an MRI done yet on it. I've been working with my chiro on it for the past 2 weeks on it, and of course he has never seen this type of injury before. He had to literally pull up a book to get my arm to do a movement that would isolate the injury to the Teres muscles. I have no specific memory of any specific incident where the injury occurred, the pain just got worse and worse during skiing over the course of about 5 days and 3 sets. Essentially the entire armpit and up into the shoulder are tender. If I reach up, I can feel a little pain/tightness just reaching.

 

Right now if you put a gun to my head I could maybe do 1 pull-up, with pain. Normally a very strong movement for me. Skiing is possible but my body will not take hits out of 2/4 whatsoever.

 

Tough situation because the season is short. I don't know the extent of the damage but I can call on the muscle and it does work, it just does so with pain.

 

Anyone have any other info about this type of injury and rehab? On the plus side, perhaps this injury will finally teach me to align my body correctly in the course so that the larger muscle groups are taking the load vs. the Teres getting passed the buck.

[wtrskior]

@jhughes go see a sports physio and/or athletic therapist who is certified in acupuncture. Also, a sports medicine doc to rule out full on tears and the possibility of cortizone/surgury (if required!). The "never seen this before" is one reason, but I don't see muscle/ligament tears as being the cornerstone of a chiropractic practice either.

 

I've had extensive work on my rotator cuff(s) muscles and I've been through all the practitioners. I also dislocated my right shoulder a few years back (still not 100%) I've never had an MRI before. It is likely not necessary with a proper physio exam.

 

A good sports therapist who works with athletes (baseball, hockey, other high impact sports with upper body dominance) is preferred. Guarantee if they've been around sports teams they've seen your injury.

 

a physio will rate your range and strength and set a plan to built that strength back and reduce the inflammation. There are a number of tools they can use for both.

[Zoro957]

Try the powervest while you are recovering. I just got one this season and it works wonders.

[skidawg]

@MrJones

[chris55]

The powervest from GOODE, it is going to help you. Horton made a topic + a video on this forum and he used it too

[MrJones]

jhughes,

Sorry to hear of your injury. It really depends on how bad it is as to how long to heal.

 

Unfortunately my wife tore her OTHER teres major since my 2009 post above. Crazy odds on that happening for sure. The ortho who saw her actually mentioned doing a case study on her, but we never got to it.

 

In her case there was no way that she could ski for the rest of the season either time. She is tough btw with multiple hip and knee surgeries in her history. We basically let the injury calm down for a bit then did a general shoulder/back rehab strengthening program for a couple of months.

 

I disagree that anybody who has been around sports teams will have seen this. We have an athletic training/sports med practice that covers 6 large high schools and see a fair number of college athletes. In 16 years of practice I have seen this injury twice. Having said that there is no "special" exercise that you have to do. My wife did a general shoulder/back program and recovered full function both times.

 

Let me also say that IMHO there is no "magic" treatment of any sort for this. I know a skier who injured his in crossfit this summer and was able to start skiing again after a couple of weeks. In my wife's case there was just no way to effectively ski due to the pain. The worse the tear, the longer it will take.

 

On the plus side, it's not going to be a surgical issue. I had to do a lot of digging to find case reports on this injury and return to sports. Everything I found showed good recovery of function with general rehab and time. Sorry this has messed up your season, but as I tell my patients, you will live to fight another day!

 

 

 

[jhughes]

@MrJones, great to know. Skied this morning, again with pain being about the same but still skied into PB territory. I'm going to try to deal with it the rest of the season and try not to overdo it on the skiing side. In the mean time I'm doing a bit of rehab on it to re-activate it and at the same time doing PT to better recruit my core.