Rodeo shoulder injury

[JD23]

Name's JD, I'm 23 and I ride in a lot of rodeos and do bullridin here in Texas a lot. Anyway, a few months ago, I was in one of the bullriding events, and I got bucked and thrown off the bull. I landed on my shoulder really hard. I got taken to the local ER because I was in so much pain and I couldn't move my shoulder and arm very good. The paramedics thought I had just dislocated my shoulder, but it turned out I fractured my collarbone pretty bad.

So the doctor put me on a lot of pain killers for it. I had to go to Dallas for surgery on my collarbone to help repair it. Anyway, a few months later, it's as if the pain hasn't got any better. It hurts so much to even lay my head on my pillow when I go to sleep at night now. I get a sharp pain like someone is slicing a knife through my shoulder and neck too now. I told my doctor here in Abilene, but he just increased my painkiller dose, as well as gave me Morphine to take if it gets any worse. I'm kind of afraid to take the Morphine now though, because the last time I did, I started getting really nauseous from it. I am afraid I might have to have another surgery again. The pain hasn't got any better, I can't sleep sometimes at night because my shoulder is in so much pain, and it's making me really aggressive towards all my buddies and my family because I can't seem to focus straight on with this pain all the time. I've had to cut down the amount of rodeo I do as well the amount of work I'm doing. I work in the oilfields, so it's a lot of heavy backbreaking work, which isn't helping me right now. I just can't handle this pain much more.

[Heidi]

Have you had a second x-ray to confirm that the collarbone has healed correctly? This should be done if it hasn't been.
The best thing you can do is to keep hassleing your Doctor. If you don't get anywhere, ask for a second opinion. A fracture of the collarbone should heal well and the pain should gradually ease within a few weeks, it certainly shouldn't be getting worse.