Originally Posted by mspennyloafer

if you are truly hypermobile (can u touch your thumb to your wrist?)

then you must strengthen but i wouldnt strengthen your upper traps wtf. do your lower traps..rotator cuff muscles. DO NOT stretch or you will end up like me!! i used to have droopy shoulders now my shoulders are hiked up to my ears from overstretching as a defense mechanism. theres no middle ground. and your neck will hate you for it.

what works for me is strengthening without weights just holding up your body weight, dont let them talk you into resistance bands, you will get worse! trust me then you combine that with the barest MINIMUM of stretching...one stretch i do is just lying down on my back and putting my arm over my head to stretch my armpit. THATS IT and if i ihave any slight tingling or nervy sensations i dont even do that. people who are hypermobile don't know how to stretch properly. they overstretch. nerves go into protection mode. repeat ad nauseum.

Originally Posted by klm207

Thanks so much for your comments everyone. The new PT has me doing 15 simple shoulder shrugs 10 times a day, alongside wall push ups (20 each hour), and rowing with a theraband. And I'm not allowed to stretch anything! I've been doing the shrugs for 2 days now and my shoulders feel exhausted, and my left shoulder (less bad tos) has started crunching away like mad. Haven't done the other exercises yet as I'm scared! He also has me elevating my shoulders at all times by about 2 inches, so that my clavicles are at approx 30 degrees (they are normally horizontal or sloping down towards my shoulders). Am feeling quite tingly in my arms and hands, but not the deep achey pain that has me crying!
This new regime is so counter-intuitive to me I don't know what to do. One interesting thing that makes me think this new PT might have a point is that on my cervical spine MRI the scalenes on the right (bad tos side) were actually hypotrophied, as are my upper traps on that side. And then I went on madly stretching these weak muscles for 5 months!
It would be really interesting to hear more thoughts on shoulder elevation for treating tos, and for us to think that maybe, the model we read everywhere about stretching and releasing the scalenes might not be right for everyone...
...

Originally Posted by kellysf

I was told to shrug my shoulders following surgery and I always found that it exacerbated my pain in the neck and traps. Most of the usual things PTs proposed for me were aggravating. The only thing I've been able to do that helps is lie on the floor and practice diaphragmatic breathing. But, at some point, one has to get off the floor so it hasn't been a practical solution, but it does take the edge off for a bit.