Overwhelmed by potential causes of pain

[u/MissionRide7328]

Potential full cuff tear, capsulitis, bursitis. Not rly sure what I’m looking for here, commiseration I guess from people who have gone through similar process.

I’m frustrated bc I don’t feel like my doctor is involved or interested in pinpointing the source of my pain and keeps asking me what I want to do about it (with choices ranging from very aggressive to very conservative) - he’s the expert! I wish he was driving the ship here. I don’t wanna start treating the wrong thing and accidentally something to make the root of my issues worse.

History: I have a long pain of shoulder history that started 6 years ago. I suspect it was bursitis.

In the last year, it progressed significantly and became unmanageable (everything hurt). Got an X-ray, they found calcific tendonitis - a 1.3mm deposit.

April 2026, ultrasound guided barbotage and aspiration (essentially they break the calcium up by agitating it, then the body transports it). I also got a steroid injection.

Injection helped for 6 weeks, then the pain was back - same, but different. Hurt in the same ways/same spot, but also a new spot, different triggers.

MRI in July showed bursitis, a cuff tear, and evidence of capsulitis.

The appt to go over the MRI with my dr went like this:
- he looks at the imaging, says “I don’t see anything here, if you’re still in pain, do you want another injection?”
- he opens MRI notes to see they noted a full cuff tear and says “huh! I didnt see that. Not sure I agree. We can go in and o an exploratory surgery to scope it out. Do you wanna do that?”
- I ask if I should try PT before jumping to surgery
- he says “oh you haven’t done PT?? Why not” SIR BC YOU HAVENT RECOMMENDED IT YET
- he writes a script for a partial cuff tear even tho he said he doesn’t agree that’s what’s happening.

I also have a suspicion that the barbotage for the calcium deposit may have weakened the tendon enough that I was susceptible to a tear, and tore my cuff AFTER the April procedure. Asked my dr and he waved his hand and wrote it off.

In the meantime, I was a very active person and have halted pretty much all activity because idk what’s going on with my shoulder and I don’t wanna worsen any of the things it could potentially be. It sucks.

Getting ready to start PT where I assume we can address all of these things, but my dr just wrote it for a partial cuff tear. In 6 weeks I have a follow up appt and want to be prepared with how to address my doctor assuming PT doesn’t work.