Any Experience with Shoulder Surgery?

I crashed my last day last spring and hurt my right shoulder. I more or less ignored it for months, focusing on other stuff. My massage therapist noted his work on it was not helping so I got into pt at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, having ultrasound, massage and adding very light shoulder work to my gym routine. That helped but did not fix the pain and reduced range of motion. So I got an MRI. I met with my doc yesterday and found I have a torn labrum(?), torn bicep tendon, and a torn muscle deep within my shoulder.

I'm seeing an orthopedic surgeon monday. I expect surgery and that I will not ski this winter.

I was wondering if anyone has had their shoulder repaired, how long recovery was and what it was like.

thanks.

yup, exactly what you had plus a couple of extras thrown in at no extra charge. What to expect. That's going to depend really on the type of surgery you are having and how severe the damage is. Can you tell me what the dr. is going to do? rehab will be the ticket though. I woudl also make sure your dr. understands what your expectations are. for instance, my surgery was about 8 years ago and I had a "full-open" they had to slice from the top of the shoulder, through the front deltoids down to my armpit and remove some muscle and tighten up the socket. This caused some permanent damage, I made sure the dr. understood that I wanted to be able to ski and bike. I can't really swim or golf, but I don't care, the point is that he did the surgery knowing what I wanted to be able to do. I can ski, bike and lift (within reason) without issues. When you tear the labrum you have to be careful moving forward with too much weight or pressure on the socket. I would guess that they have better proceedures now and hopefully you won't need anything so drastic as a full-open. I did have laproscopy first and that was walk in the park comparitively, so if that's what the plan is, then you'll be OK, and in fact, you may be skiing in March.

The ortho I am seeing, Dr. McCartny, on monday is the head doc for CU athletics, or somesuch. Boulder being the athletic town that it is and the doc dealing with athletes all the time, I'm sure he will have much respect for how active I am all year round. He played football at CU too so...

I'll post back and relate what I find out after I see him.

Well, I'm scheduled for surgery Jan 4 to fix torn rotator cuff and torn bicep tendon. My right arm will be immobilized for 6 weeks in a sling - I won't be able to drive my car due to stick shift. Working at my computer will be interesting.

After that months of rehab until I am strong enough to have my right meniscus operated on for a tear. shaZAM!

No skiing. No teaching in the adaptive program at Winter Park. I was really looking forward to working with the great girl I skied with last year.

Oh well, I decided to make that turn off that rock which led to big divot in snow, then ignored my painful shoulder all summer cuz I could ride my bike and was focused on that.

At least I didn't have the traumatic stuff that happened to Noodler.

have fun everyone!

I had full open surgery on my right shoulder about five years ago now to repair shredded up labrum. After the six weeks of imobilization there was a long stint of PT to work on getting range of motion back. I'd say the shoulder was sore and sometimes painfull for a good six months after surgery. I have almost full range of motion now. I can swim and play golf - though sometimes I tweak it golfing and I can't backstroke. I also can't throw overhand unless I throw like a girl. Skiing has been no problem except the joint sometimes gets sore if I ski somewhere that I end up doing a lot of poling across the flats.

On the plus side my joint was so torn up that it was always popping out before the surgery when I did things like pull a door open. The loss of mobility beats the heck out of the problems I was experiencing before the surgery. The joint feels tight and sound now.

Not to scare you, but I had some simple (outpatient) shoulder surgery this summer -- the wound ended up getting infected, and I had to spend 5 days in hospital. On the plus side (?), I dropped 20 pounds, which might help my skiing.

Doubt that'll happen to astrochimp. He doesn't have weak sauce.

be positive and don't give up! Sometimes you can get a bit down on your self if you are a "A" type but it will take time ot heal. best thing you can do is to be positive and do exactly what the Dr. and Rehab folks tell you to do. Don't overdo it. That's one of the worst things you can do.

Also, remember this, "there is good pain and bad pain" Good pain is OK, bad pain (generally sharp or biting pain) is not good.

thanks. I have been very positive and happy about that. Sometimes though that gives way to being bummed out and hurting.

I'm already planning on life after surgery, from a bus pass to a buzz cut to new bike racing flicks. I'm preparing to file a short term disability claim at work in case of pain or my sauce goes bad and I get infected.

I've set long term goals. I'm going to have my road bike on a trainer and begin using rehab as my path back to being strong on my bike. Gym work will go from shoulder pt to upper body strength work, as it has with my knee in the past.

Possibly April, if and when my shoulder is healed enough, I will have my right menuscus operated on again to fix another tear. It's going to be a long time until I am 100% but I need fixing and the plan is to being strong on my bikes and skiing next year.

I am sad I don't get to go back for my second year of teaching at the National Sports Center for the Disabled in Winter Park. But, that will be there next year too. Oh well.

Maybe I will try to post some post-op messages typing with just my left hand.

Ugh. Sorry to hear that you'll be going through all this. I never had shoulder surgery, but I did break my upper arm right at the shoulder ball. My arm was in a sling for just under a month until the break healed. I was in rehab for about six weeks before I had 'normal' use of that shoulder, and then I continued rehab exercises on my own for months afterwards before all movement became pain-free. I don't know if you've had rehab before, but there will be bad days, especially early on. Just don't slack off your exercises, and you'll be ok.

Rotator cuff surgery

I dont want to bum you out to bad but rotator cuff surgery is traumatic. Just to let you know about me. Three broken arms,one broken leg,broken ribs,nose,fingers toes and jaw,emergency appendectomy,six bouts with kidney stones the last one lasting 2 months ending with surgical removal. The only one of these that compared to my rotator cuff surgery is the kidney stones which hurt worse but the pain did let up on me from time to time. The first month is bad and plan on taking a couple of weeks off from pretty much everything. Keeping your arm immobilized is'nt a problem because you want even consider moving your elbow away from your hip until the therapist moves it for you. Be carefull and dont over do it during therapy or at home doing your exercises.The last thing you want to do is go through this more than once. I had my surgery last march and really thought I had screwed up but I'm happy I had it now. I can swim,throw a base ball,scratch my back ect... and I already have most of my strength back. If you play golf you'll be able to get back to that pretty quickly but the things I listed above take awhile. I did have to get alot of work done including some bone removal. They had to cut me to get all of it done. From what I hear it's not as bad if they can do everything with a scope. Driving is tough even with a automatic but your computer key board should'nt be to much of a problem. Good luck.