[petejh]

I've got a 4 year old rotator cuff injury (tore 3 of the 4 muscles), it's fine now but it's built up a load of scar tissue and that shoulder is noticably less flexible than the other. I've recently started doing lots of shoulder stretching (to help with a slightly tweaky elbow) and when I do certain shoulder stretches the muscles in my injured shoulder start really twitching like mad and it feels like there's little creatures crawling around in there. I'm assuming what I'm feeling is the scar tissue stretching, whatever it is it feels great - like popping bubble wrap. Any physios out there know if this is normal/scar tissue stretching??

[JamesPullan]

Firstly, I'm not a qualified medic or anything, although I have studied sport science and physiology etc.

It could be related to your scar tissue, it does, however, sound more like a nervous issue - if it feels like tiny spasms in your cuff or as though something is tugging away at small areas of the shoulder, then there may be nerve damage or some synaptic short circuiting.

It could be permanent as a result of the damage, or it could be a temporary issue helped with continued rehabilitation.

I'll stress again that I'm not a med, but I do hope you'll find the info useful

[petejh]

Hmm.. interesting. Yeah after stretching the shoulder in the 'stretching cat' type position there's lots of tiny continuous spams in the cuff area which last for hours afterward. Also I stretched a bit aggressively last week and the arm was half numb for about an hour after!! Think you're probably right it's some nerve damage/entrapment probably from scar tissue, because some of the symptoms are similar to what I've experienced from a disc bulge/sciatica I've been dealing with. Short circuits, yep.  Feels good getting those little spasms though