I have two issues with my right shoulder that are bothering me significantly. I plan on going to the doctor once my insurance kicks in in a couple of months, but until then I'd like some advice on minimizing the discomfort.

The first is what seems to be a rotator cuff problem. I injured it a year and a half or so ago, and thought it had healed... apparently, I thought wrong. I originally injured it when I was lifting something over my head onto a shelf (it weighed about 45 pounds) and lost control of it... I kind of pushed it away from me backwards to keep it from landing on my head, and in the process my shoulder was wrenched backwards. It felt like a pulled muscle at that point, and bothered me for a couple of weeks, then finally went away. Since then, it's bothered me intermittently, although not enough to worry or do anything about beyond take a couple of Tylenol. In the last couple of weeks, it's gotten much worse... worse than it was originally. It's gone from mildly inconvenient to downright painful, and I've noticed a slight loss of range of motion (which is minor, and easily countered by a reasonable stretching regimen two to three times a day... the stretching also helps get rid of the pain).

The second is one that I'm much more worried about... when lifting a heavy object about six weeks ago, I felt a pop just to the right of the spinal column, near the lower end of the shoulder blade. It didn't hurt (although it surprised the hell out of me), and felt a lot like cracking my knuckles felt. Ever since then, I've had a persistent dull ache in that area, and underneath the lower half of that shoulder blade. It's not really painful, just irritating... at times, it feels almost like it itches, at others it almost tickles, and sometimes it just feels tired. Occasionally, it feels like there's a piece of gravel or something stuck under the shoulder blade too, but that hasn't happened much and is getting rarer.

Neither injury has any loss of strength associated, nor any numbness. I know that they're both aggravated in part by the fact that I almost always sleep on my right side.

So what I'm looking for, I guess, are techniques for minimizing the movement of that arm (short of putting it in a sling or something similar... I can't work if I have to do that), and maybe advice on figuring out how to retrain myself to sleep on my other side or my back.

Nosnosna, what you are describing with your shoulder sounds to me like you are fighting "frozen shoulder". I am attaching a link for you to look at. It includes therapy you need to do to keep it from freezing up completely. You can also do a further search for frozen shoulder therapy to see what else pops up.

Frozen Shoulder Symptoms

Since I enjoy reading your postings, I want to make sure you are taking care of yourself properly. We need you to keep showing up on the boards with your sage advice, so, hopefully this info will help! If your shoulder freezes up, how will you type! :eek:

Regarding retraining how you sleep is another matter completely. Kind of out of range of my expertise. The only thing I can think of is getting 2 body pillows and putting them on either side of you when you go to sleep on the opposite side that you normally do. They should keep you from moving out of that position during the night.