the very first thing that came to my mind when you said 'popping' was possible ligament damage or just lax ligaments? it would simply allow too much movement when doing certain ROMS. the only way to really know whats going on in there tho would be to simply have an MRIdone. if you did have past damage to that area,it kind of ups the need to just have this looked into more in depth. other things within that shoulder could have suffered some level of damage back then that has always been but has gotten worse over time? this is what happened with my shoulder(my initial tear in the tendon that runs across the very top from shoulder to neck started back in 1989,just didn;t know it then). i just had a rotator repair done this past feb for a torn tendon,i mean completly torn in half,and the one underneath it also needed some repar too. the thing is,i had no real clue that the extent of damage was as bad as it actually was(five things needed repair in there during my surgery).
depending upon just how hard your jobs in the past and currently have been as far as how they impact your shoulder(or even hobbies like bowling?),there could be some things in there that just may need some level of repair. all my jobs in the past have pretty much demanded "me',and alot of lifting twisting and just movements that repetitively impacted both shoulders,but mostly the right one which is my "bad" one. it sounds like from what you have stated that both you and your hubby are doing some type of job that is creating problems with your shoulders? he should probably have an MRI done too just to see whats up. the rotator tear is one of the most commonly seen injuries/repairs done in ortho surgery. my ortho told me this when he did his eval and looked at my MRI. we just use that shoulder joint in so many different ways and in so many different directions it can very easily be overtaxed and overused and damaged.
i really do think you need to follow up with your primary on this and ask about at least obtaining that MRI soon. the much sooner any level of real damage gets repaired,the less impact it has on your recovery and the rehab thats just needed for any real shoulder surgery and the less pain will be involved in most cases. getting to this early before things get to where you can no longer even lift things just really needs to be done. the very last shred of my tendon just snapped one morning(last nov) when all i did was try and lift my purse off the top of the fridge. i lifted and something just snapped and i had to drop my purse right where it was. i just could not pull it up after that(VERY painful). thats when i saw my primary for the eval and he sent me for that very revealing MRI. you just really need to know whats going on in your shoulder,and your hubby tooo it sounds like. he is probably much worse than you are from your description? the sooner this gets fixed the better off you are. its that simple really. hopefully things are not too bad and could maybe even require just some PT,but you just need that MRI in order to tell what the next step should be. i do wish you luck with this. please keep me posted. FB
