Weekly Cup of Joe - Episode #4 - 'Slight' Rotator Cuff Tear

Good morning, everybody! And happy Wednesday. And also, happy 1st of July. Wow! Can't believe June is already gone by so fast. Welcome to your next episode of your Weekly Cup of Joe. Hope you've had a great week so far. This week's question is coming from Jack and he wants to know " Does a slight rotator cuffed tear heal on its own and the ache that goes with it, will it ever go away?" It's a great question, Jack, and, kind of a difficult one to answer in such a short period of time, but do my best to try to answer this thoroughly enough. So without MRI vision or x-ray vision---which I don't have---that definition of ‘slight’ is a difficult one to decipher. 

So if that slight means less than 25% of that tissue, whether it be tendon or muscle is damaged, research has shown sometimes in the past that, that tissue can heal itself where some good tissue, some new muscle, some new tendon can be laid down and along with some scar tissue and basically help that slight tear kind of heal itself. And basically, all things go back to normal over a course of time. Rehab is part of that physical therapy. But if you have multiple slight tears in and around the rotator cuff, that chance of it healing thoroughly and fully, and pain going away is probably not so good. Or if that slight is actually more than 25%, it's maybe closer to 50% of a tear, it's a little more difficult for that to heal or fill in or get back to a functional level. So it all depends also on the amount of tissue that was damaged around that rotator cuff, maybe also.

There's lots of stuff that goes into it. There is one technique that we do at the clinic that helps with muscle-tendon strains and tears like that. Especially slight tears, it's called Augmentative Soft Tissue Mobilization, or ASTYM. See that there ASTYM, it's a natural, technique of manual therapy, which we go in and basically break down some old scar tissue/ fibroid tissue that might have basically not healed or has laid down, formed and not caused the muscle to heal in or around that injured area. So if you've had that slight rotator cuffed tear and have had injured it off and on over the years, the scar tissue may have formed up and, we'll go in and break that down by using some specific instruments and allow new tissue, new tendon, new muscle tissue, protein matrix to go in there and build up that tissue and then you get to strengthen it, and stretch and teach it what you want to do. Tools or instruments, kind of look like this, there's one it's kind of a funky ice cream scooper, is one larger blade and there's one smaller instrument as well. It all depends on the body part that we're working on. Depends on what instruments we use, but we will basically go in and you're going parallel to the muscle fibres. So you're going along those muscles, you're looking for scar tissue, you're looking for fibroid tissue to break it down. It can be very effective, to help with that healing process, in conjunction with doing some great physical therapy at the same time.

So I hope that answers your question, Jack. Thank you so much for submitting the question. So please, for those individuals, continue to send in questions regarding health, wellness or physical therapy that you want to be answered and, we'll continue to do this on a weekly basis. If you think that you might want to learn more about the ASTYM or think that you might be a candidate for ASTYM, you can definitely call the clinic, and the number is below. Also, there are going be a couple of video links to the ASTYM. One talking about it and one showing a demonstration so that's going to be below as well and you guys can look at those and get some more information regarding that.

This week's focus is going to be that we'd be working on that perspective thing is the negative zone; trying to stay out of the negative zone. So, the negative zone is that time of day when the energy-sucking portion of it, something bad has happened, something unexpected is happening and you're deflated and you're going down into that valley, and you can't concentrate very well. So you need to go into that positive toolbox of yours; that high-energy activities to boost yourself back up and get yourself going again. So whether that be exercise, whether that be going outside, meditating, talking with friends, listening to music, a podcast, whatever it may be, you have to acknowledge the bad thing that has happened. You have to take a deep breath, reset, tell yourself it's going to be okay, go into that positive toolbox of yours, pull out whatever method you're going to use and refocus yourself because you go to remember, staying in that negative zone is bad. There's nothing good that's ever going to come out of it. And no good decisions are ever made when you are, in that negative zone. So stay out of that as much as you possibly can. Everybody goes in it during the day, but try to stay out of it for prolonged periods of time. Thank you very much. Hope you enjoyed this week's episode, and we'll see you next Wednesday for your Weekly Cup of Joe. Bye.