A buddy of mine went through that recently. It went well for him. Only real big deal was the painkillers bound him up bad. A mild laxative from the start, should have been taken. No real lifting for several weeks. There's physical therapy needed after the operation. Best of luck to you.
Sorry to hear about that. Good luck. Hate to be bearer of bad news, but I feel the need to give my honest opinion. I have had that surgery and it is one of the roughest I have had. Two to 3 months before I could start to use my arm much at all. 6 months before use returned to pre-surgery. I would say about 9 months to completely healed and pain free. They prescribed a chair that the arm moved up and down. You could set the range of motion you wanted. I pressed myself on range. The chair was a godsend at night. I would be laying in bed and the should hurt like he!!. Get up and sit in the chair and it felt real good. Expect a lot of physical therapy. I don't know if you are a golfer or not. One of the exercise you would lay on your back , grasp a cane with both hands and bring it up to your shoulder. The exact same motion as chipping a golf ball. My surgeon was a golfer and on one visit I showed him what they had me doing and said that was the same as a golf shot. Could I put a 5 gallon bucket out in the yard and chip to it? He said he hadn't thought of it that way but if it would get me to the exercise have at it. He limited me to a quarter swing. Good luck. The surgery was about 15 years ago so there are probably much better procedures now a days.
Sounds like you had it rough Marshel54. Mine wasn't so bad. Back in January 2016, ironically, while dealing with some rotator cuff tearing on my left shoulder, I fell and instantly severed the supraspinatus tendon on my right shoulder while coaching my sons midget hockey team practice. There was 1.5 cm retraction of the tendons. I couldn't raise my arm laterally at all. Tough when I am right handed. It took some time but my family doctor was able to get me into one of the best shoulder surgeons in the province. I eventually was able to get it repaired in late January 2017. I had it done arthrocopically. The specialist used little plugs drilled into the shoulder bone and upper arm with stitches to pull the retracted tendons back together. I had to wear an immobilizing sling 23 1/2 hours a day for the first 6 weeks (only taking it off to shower). After that it was several more weeks of physiotherapy. I had some limitations but was quickly back doing most activities. I was golfing by August and back playing hockey by winter. Mobility came back pretty quickly but regaining strength took some time. I just had a check up with the surgeon last week and both he and I are happy with my recovery. I have 100% mobility and about 85-90% strength back. Funny side story is that while in my appointment last week my shoulder specialist surgeon was telling me how he hurt his shoulder in the spring while playing hockey with his kids.
"Take shorter strokes" ................................................ Seriously though, go slow and easy and seriously stick to the rehab when you get to that step. Good luck.
I have had a quad bypass, was back to "normal" in 3 weeks. never have taken a pain pill in my life. Drs. description almost matches XXl's therapy starts 1 week after surgery.
Ice is your friend. I know all too well. When I fractured my scapula in '14, I got one of these. It is a great pain control device and really helped w/the healing process. Worth every penny. The gel ice packs that come w/it stay in the freezer and work great for sore knees and fit many hard to reach body parts. I know. Do the rehab exercises, faithfully. Good luck!
One thing I would like to add is that when you go to physiotherapy, they like to push you hard....to hard in my opinion. I would go and they wanted to see how far they could contort me to determine my range of motion and then give me 5 to 10 exercises to do. By the time I wasn't hurting anymore and felt well enough to attempt the exercises it was time to go back to physio where they would tie you up like a pretzel again and give you 10 new exercises to do.
I have taken it as a challenge to get all the windows and doors in my restoration before surgery. That will put me into wiring it. I wanted to have the surgery in January but wife said ASAP the house can sit there. I won't do anything stupid but I will recover and be betterer. I figure I have 34 years left to accomplish something. 92 same as Dad. If my shoulder does get in the way of my restorations/bucket list I think I will become a licensed electrician. Semi retirement is nice but I love what I do so I think I will work till they put me in the box.
I've had more shoulder surgery's than I care to think about. Both shoulders for a variety of injuries. The two big keys for recovery, pre-hab and re-hab. Particularly the re-hab, don't miss re-hab appointments andwork hard at the re-hab facility as well as at home.
