Help Please!!!!!!!!

[Wounded Lion]

This past summer, I was diagnosed with a stressed growth plate, after playing a full varsity season and pitching over 40 innings during the spring and about 10 innings in the summer, until the pain became too much. I am sixteen years old and I know that growthplate injuries at my age are uncommon. It has now been nearly six months of rest, and last week I gave throwing a try. At first, light throwing, there was no pain. Once I began to move back and throw a little harder, i felt a clicking or catching feeling in my shoulder, along with minor pain. This happened continuously on every throw that I reached "full extension" on afterwards (aka I was not shortarming it). Today i tried throwing and the same thing occured. I went to a doctor in late august, and he said that my injury was healing, and I could resume normal activites/lifting in a couple weeks. I have been lifting and working out a lot over the past 2 months. I am a lot bigger and stronger than I was when I was diagnosed with my injury, but my ability to throw a baseball seems to be completely gone. I am so confused and my dad scheduled an appointment with a specialist this week. He seems to think that I could have a "frayed labrum" which that would mean surgery right? If i got this surgery, how long would it take to recover? Is my growthplate still not fully healed?

Oh yea and the clicking i did not feel while pitching over the summer, but then again, when I did pitch, I tended to shortarm the baseball because of the pain.

Symptoms:
Clicking in shoulder and some pain
Discouraged athlete

Please Help!!!!!!

[Ruth]

Hi Wounded Lion,

Unfortunately shoulder injuries are very common in your age group within your sport due to the stresses placed upon the shoulder.

Although you were cleared to return to practice, given the length of time you were not able to throw, it might have been a better idea to start of with the short throwing for a few weeks, and build up the muscles gradually, alongside the distance and speed of your pitching. Certainly working with no pain would be preferred to working through the pain and potentially causing further injury.

When you say you've been working out a lot over the summer, what kind of exercises have you been doing (i.e. deadlifts, squats, overhead flys, etc?) and have you been careful to work within your limits and avoid putting excess stress on the shoulder? Did you experience any pain in the shoulder during this training?

You describe the labrum injury perfectly, it is just that - the Glenoid Labrum forms the lining of the "socket" that the top of your arm bone (humerus) fits into, and if it becomes frayed, rather than its usual smooth surface, it can cause clicking and grating when the arm moves (particularly in the throwing movement). Please view our shoulder pages for more in depth information http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/shoulder_injuries.htm

I would expect that if any surgery was warranted it would be done arthroscopically, i.e. they make a series of very small incisions and insert a camera, have a look around, and if required they can "trim" down any frayed edges and such like. This is minimally invasive and should usually only be a day or two in hospital.

Until your appointment it might be a good idea to lay off the painful throwing, and see what the specialist has to say.

Please let us know what they say, and the link above has lots of information on shoulder injuries, rehabilitation and strengthening/stretching exercises.