I have at last got an answer as to the continuing pain with my left shoulder...and pain and cracking noise in my sternum. Although an MRI showed that the supraspinatus tendon in my shoulder has a small tear which showed on previous MRI of 18 months ago, the recent MRI was of my sternum too. This showed that I have an effusion and inflammatory changes in the left sternoclavicular joint. Rheumatologist said problems in that joint do not usually happen until a person is very old (80’s 90’s) with arthritis but they can show up in ‘younger’ people when there has been an injury to the chest or sternum - and a sternotomy is definitely an injury even if it is a controlled injury, plus, the rheumatologist said, the way the sternum is pulled apart is worse than a accidental injury. Pain from the sternoclavicular joint can radiate to the shoulder and arm. I don’t have any pain problem in the right shoulder even though that has a small tendon tear too, but the sternoclavicular joint on the right in fine.