Several years ago when I was painting a camp metal roof with aluminized paint, very carefully I thought, but I must have mistakenly let a single drop fall where I was about to step. Very suddenly down I went still clutching a half bucket of aluminized asphalt paint in my right hand. The worst part was I had just dismantled a crumbling cinder block chimney and the rubble was thrown down on the ground, guess where. On the way down I instantly thought "how many bones" would I break in the rubble pile. I knew I had to do my best parachute landing roll that I had learned years before in the Air Force. Turns out the loose rubble pile must have actually softened my landing as far as I could figure, because I immediately stood up with no pain, although I looked like the tin man covered head to toe with aluminum paint.
I had no pain until a day later when I could not raise my right hand above my chin without excruciating pain in my shoulder. So I went to see a sports medicine doctor who was also an orthopedic surgeon. An examination, xrays and MRI later determined that I had severely torn my rotator cuff. I was scheduled to paddle the annual adirondack 90 miler in another month, and then another race on the Yukon River the following season, so I needed to do something to get better fast.
The doc wanted to do repair surgery on my rotator cuff right away. I had known other paddlers who got that surgery and knew what recovery was like for them. I asked the doc how long I would have to hold my arm in a sling at my stomach. I already knew the answer... 3 months. No thank you. So the doc said he could inject cortisone internally right at the site of the tear and it might help for a while. Do it. it seemed to work and I paddled the 90 without significant pain. The pain relief seemed to be complete for about 3 months before coming back to some moderately low extent. After a few weeks of doing specialized exercises several times a week at a physical therapist near home I knew I could terminate the expensive visits and continue the same exercises at home. It seemed to help quite a bit. I also have an indoor paddle training machine that I used with care a lot over the winter months
Six months later, after the winter season, as am preparing for the Yukon race I made another visit to the doc and got another MRI. He said it still looked bad and repeated the offer for surgery. Can I tray another shot of cortisone? Sure, put the needle injection just where you put it before. That got me through the Yukon race in June, feeling a bit of pain tingle only just whenever I thought much about it or when the stern paddler forgot to call hut for a long time.
It has now been another 10 more years, and I have paddled every 90 miler race since then, plus two 440 mile Yukon races and a number of other local races plus training, all virtually pain free with complete arm motion as normal in all activities. I am convinced that proper exercises combined with the right amount of paddle training kept my arm self repairing itself going strong and healthy.