Shoulder problems.. rotator cuff?

[KaraK]

For some years now I've been having problems with my right shoulder (AFAIK it traces back to me breaking the collarbone about 10+ years ago but has got much worse over the last year or so), general symptoms are:

• restricted movement - if I stand straight and try and raise the arm up and away from my body I can generally only get the arm to 90 degrees, sometimes a few degrees more on a "good" day and less on a "bad" day IYSWIM before the pain of doing so stops me going further

• continual pain - I don't mean to sound like a wuss here but it hurts all the time, intensity varies from day to day and is generally worse first and last thing.

• reduced strength - I think the muscles themselves are ok, on good days they will still bear a reasonable amount of weight but most of the time even holding a say a full glass in my hand gives an uncomfortable feeling of "pulling" on the shoulder if that makes sense

• knots up to hell - I end up with serious knotting of my muscles which causes further pain and spills out to other areas like my neck, mid-back and arm

• spasms - a couple of days recently I've had what the medics have described as my muscles going into spasm and trapping a nerve, this is pretty unnerving tbh as it makes me largely unable to move my right arm, gives me pins and needles in the arm and leaves me unable to grip anything with my right hand (when prompted by the nurse I couldn't pick my phone up off the table for example)

• reduced circulation in the arm (I think) - noticed this yesterday when I was in "spasm" that my right hand seemed noticeably colder then my left which I can only think is a lack of blood flow to the hand, the same effect is present today (although I can at least move and grip today - the shoulder/neck is pretty darn painful though) and I know this isn't just my brain telling me this as I had a colleague touch both of my hands and they confirmed that the right is definitely colder than the left.

I'm slowly making my way through the NHS process with it, and the current theory is that I've got a rotator cuff problem of some kind, either an impingement or some kind of tear - I had an MRI done last week and will be getting the results in another fortnight but I'm wondering if there is anything I can do in the meantime to be making it more manageable? I've been using ibuprofen for the pain () and inflammation, liberally slathering Tiger Balm on the shoulder, neck and arm and generally trying to keep it warm and mobile where possible but it's starting to feel like I'm swimming against the tide. Yesterday was a complete write-off as I had to bail on work because my right arm was a useless meat sack attached to my shoulder and as a righty that made me rather useless!

Today has been better than that but the longer I'm spending at my desk the more I can feel the tightness and pain creeping back up again and I know it's only a matter of time before I'm back there again which means I can't work, I can't drive, hell even buttering toast was a pathetic display straight out of a bad sitcom! So what does the wisdom of PH think - anything I should/shouldn't be doing to mitigate this?

[KaraK]

if it's physio that could be good.. I'm decidedly unkeen on the notion of getting cut open for it as the few times I've had surgery it's really knocked the stuffing out of me!

[KaraK]

Well I had my appt yesterday to get the results of the MRI - there was nothing they could see on the scan which would be causing the problems They could however see signs of edema apparently and are referring me to the musculo-skeletal clinic for further investigation. The doc seemed to think it might be Complex Regional Pain Syndrome which I did some reading up on last night and in many ways it does fit what symptoms I'm having but fk knows at this point, I'll just have to see what the specialist says