Anyone with shoulder (Rotator cuff) surgery experience? | GTAMotorcycle.com

Anyone with shoulder (Rotator cuff) surgery experience?

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Found out on Wednesday I need rotator cuff surgery, large tear in one of the tendons. Have been struggling with some serious pain since before Christmas and after months of physio without resolution (I initially thought it was just an "aches and pains" type muscle thing, not a "20+ years as a human forklift has worn out your body" situation) I got referred to an orthopaedic surgeon. Xrays and ultrasound came back mostly inconclusive, but the MRI told the tale loud and clear.

Surgeon said not to expect surgery before probably December-ish (for a variety of reasons, not just typical waitlist reasons, but I won't get into that here), and to then expect a minimum 6 month recovery. 9-12 weeks with my dominant arm fully immobilized sounds like hell, and then 3 months of physio afterwards before I can even think about returning to work.

I'm bummed.
 
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What specifically did the MRI note that is torn - ie what type of tear and to what part of the rotator cuff?

Last year I tore my supraspinatus pretty severely at work and it put me on very light duties for about a month, after which I changed jobs to being a desk jockey all winter, so I wasn't stressing it anymore. The physio was doing okay, but still I was very sore every day and the right shoulder was really fragile. I started doing yoga 7 days a week and it really helped. I haven't done physio since November of last year and I am now doing really physical work outside, yet my shoulder fells really strong. I'm still doing the yoga about 4-5 days a week and te amount it helps is really impressive.

My wife has a client who also had a rotator cuff tear and he was advised to get surgery on it. He was 69 or 70 when this happened and instead he decided to just do specific exercises instead of surgery and is back playing full tennis and other things like he used to. Sometimes a second opinion is a good thing and he was really diligent about his exercises.
 
I don't have the reports in front of me unfortunately, but it's not something that's going to heal without surgery - to the contrary it only stands to get worse...potentially, a lot worse. As it stands right now I'm still working (and can ride) so long as it doesn't get worse.

I've already seen 2 doctors on it and same advice - it needs surgery.

My job is quite physical with a lot of climbing, lifting, pulling, pushing, and overhead work, so there's no option of "taking it easy" either, although even if there was it would at best stay in it's current state, it would never heal or improve. Initially I had hoped this would have been the case - I was off for the better part of 3+ weeks over Christmas and my hope at that point was that it would improve with a break from the physical side of work, but it did not get better at all - it just remained the exact same.

Unfortunately surgery is inevitable.
 
I know guys who have had surgery to fix it. It's pretty much what your doctor told you, 6 months and there's no guarantee it will ever be back to normal. I have a similar injury I never had fixed mainly because I didn't want be out of work for so long. I live with the pain. Other guys I know have had it and still have limitations to what they can do. But some went through it and say it helps a lot (but they're never back to normal). Make sure you get all your ducks in line if it's WSIB, those jerks will screw you if they can. I'm on short term disability right now for a knee injury. At this age you realize you just can't keep working like a 25 year old anymore. Good luck. See you on the forums more.
 
I'll check with my friend when I get a chance.
He was rear ended on his bike, and had a bad tear.
Runs his own construction company, so he couldn't stop working, or he wouldn't have a place to sleep.
Part of his job is working with his hands over his head, so he was in much pain from the sounds of it.
He had surgery and I believe that the doctor didn't think it was as bad as it was until he opened him up.
Would have done the recovery asap, as again, he needed to feed the family.
For physio, I remember him saying that the therapist, would force it until he was almost ready to pop her one with the other arm, and then let it go.
He seems recovered now.
 
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As per the loss of earnings side of things whilst off, I don't really want to get too much into that's as it's ongoing.

Something else I have in the back of my head is that we have a cruise planned for March - if the surgery doesn't end up happening until December and the recovery is minimum 6 months, well, that's hosed up for sure as I'm not going to go on vacation potentially only 8 weeks post op when I'm still immobilized in a sling.

And I don't do well doing, well...nothing. I was off for a year around Y2K for a cervical spinal fusion - the first three months (especially considering it was summer) was awesome, but then I started to get bored. Then the surgery happened and I don't remember about 3 months of my life because of the pain meds and recovery process, but for the last 6 months I was fit to be tied...but couldn't go back to work until the 12 month point.

As much as some people might think "Hey, 6 months off over the winter, awesome!", personally, I'm dreading it already. Worse yet, with my dominant arm immobilized for months, just sitting online and irritating the hell out of everyone here on the forum won't even be likely as it will drive me patently insane trying to hunt and peck my responses with only 1 hand. ;)

I don't do well with watching TV for 18 hours a day either - I get bored after a few hours.

And then there's all the "other" things in life that is going to be a pain with only your wrong arm useful.

I guess so long as I can do lower extremity work I can at least maybe finally haul my *** to the gym and loose some weight. About 12 hours a day and I should be perfectly svelte by spring 2018!
 
What Roadghost said about the physio (pushing to limit) but helped a lot. (not rotator, but shoulder injury)
And a very real issue to worry about: practice wiping with your other hand now.
Trust me.

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
 
good friend is recovering from it now, hes eight weeks post op and sporting a sling with a foam block. No other way to say it than it suck a LOT and hurts a lot, but the option was 6 months of suck vs. the rest of his life in pain so......
 
I had rotator cuff surgery June 99,by Robin Richards at St. Mikes. He told me to start physio the next day, if possible. I drove my standard shift car, the day I got out of hospital. You can't put force on the joint, but it has to keep moving. You can do a lot of the stuff yourself, with pulleys. Good luck.
 
What if your other hand's in a cast?
Bidet?
Don't tell me that's what happened to you? You had some serious shoulder work done, right?

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
 
And a very real issue to worry about: practice wiping with your other hand now.
Trust me.

Well, without going into a lot of detail, that wasn't as big a deal as I somehow envisioned ;)

good friend is recovering from it now, hes eight weeks post op and sporting a sling with a foam block. No other way to say it than it suck a LOT and hurts a lot, but the option was 6 months of suck vs. the rest of his life in pain so......

Yes, the six months of crap versus a lifetime of pain is pretty much the exact situation I am in right now. The pain I can deal with at this point (Although I won't miss it, don't get me wrong, but it's not something I'm not used to given my neck hurts to some extent pretty much chronically), but it's the fact that it will almost certainly get worse and I will lose a lot of strength is the reason why I need to get it fixed – already, as the Cortizone wears off, I can feel my strength slowly decreasing. Apparently, left unrepaired, most people eventually avoid using the affected arm to the point of atrophy.

I had rotator cuff surgery June 99,by Robin Richards at St. Mikes. He told me to start physio the next day, if possible. I drove my standard shift car, the day I got out of hospital. You can't put force on the joint, but it has to keep moving. You can do a lot of the stuff yourself, with pulleys. Good luck.

Must've been a much more minor tear versus what I am looking at – I was told that under no circumstances whatsoever (short of showering) is the arm to be left unrestrained – I must keep it in the sling 24 hours a day otherwise, including sleeping, which I can only imagine it's going to suck donkey balls.

Different people have different experiences based on the severity of the injury, and the invasiveness of the surgery – for example after my spinal fusion I spent a week in the hospital, three months at home in a 3/4 vegetative state (yay morphone and Percocet), and then six months of recovery before returning to life. On the other hand one of my friends had a C2/C3 neck fusion (mine was C1/C2), left the hospital the next day with just Tylenol 3, did not need a cervical fixation collar for three months (like I had), and returned to work about 2 months later. I was amazed. But, being a bit lower in the neck it was a much less invasive procedure versus the base of the skull.

I've become hyper aware of all the things I won't be able to do for 3-4 months after the surgery - try spending an hour of your normal life with your dominant arm strapped to your chest and you quickly get an idea of all the things that you take for granted that are suddenly going to be difficult if not impossible.

On the bright side at least it's going to be winter when it happens – I guess I have a built-in excuse for not shoveling the driveway at least. :/
 
Don't tell me that's what happened to you?
Broke R collarbone and cracked L wrist at the same time. Butterfly brace + R arm in a sling and a cast on the L arm. Ended up cutting the cast off after a week and had the collarbone plated a week after that.

You had some serious shoulder work done, right?
I've put several orthopedic surgeons' children through university.
 
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My friend got back to me, this is what he had to say: "Hi Ray, he will have to make sure he doesn't stay in the sling to long. Other wise he could end up with a frozen shoulder. He should talk his doctor or the surgeon doing the surgery. I was off work for three months, I couldn't drive for that time period and that was my right arm which is my dominant one. They left me in the sling too long and I had to go in again for a second surgery and it took nearly a year to get back in. He will have to set up a rope and pulley some where at home to work on getting it mobile again, it going to hurt but he has to get the arm raised up as high as he can, I thought I was doing good but the surgeon gave **** for not getting high enough first time around. Once he knows his surgery date he should get the physio booked as soon as possible so there isn't any delays in getting started, I ended up putting a spinner on my steering wheel for a year after the second surgery to make the driving easier, They are legal I checked into it. That is about all I can say. It takes a while for the recovery but it is worth it."
 
Different surgeons tend to have somewhat different instructions following the surgery they do.
It depends on where/when they trained, but also what they had to do when they actually went into the shoulder and saw what needed fixing. less fixing = less restrictions and faster recovery

Arthroscopic surgeries (with a scope and small tools inside the joint) are less invasive and tend to recover faster than "open" surgeries where the surgeon cuts the whole shoulder wide open (which involves cutting through the attachment of the pecs).

GENERALLY speaking, you can expect to be in the sling 24/7 for 6 weeks.

During this time, you will have very gentle exercises to perform passively 2-3 times a day, to prevent the shoulder from becoming too stiff but also avoid putting stress on the rotator cuff repair.
Being too aggressive during this phase, or not following your restrictions can ruin the repair -- something your won't find out until 3 months afterwards when it comes time to start strengthening.

After 6 weeks in the sling, you will gradually wean off of it over 1-4 weeks, depending on how your shoulder is doing and what the surgeon wants.

During this time, you still cannot actually use the shoulder or arm for every day tasks, and you will be instructed to continue wearing the sling in bed (if you tend to move around alot) and when in crowds (to avoid people grabbing your arm, or asking you to hold something, etc.)

Throughout this time, you will continually be doing gentle exercises to slowly and safely regain you shoulder mobility without damaging the repair.

Most people return to driving an automatic transmission car (if they have had their right shoulder done) at about the 8 to 10 week mark, but care must be taken not to overuse the operated shoulder

At the 12 week mark, many surgeons will allow specific gentle strengthening exercises.

At the 14 to 16 week mark you generally start real strengthening (slowly at first) to allow you to return to normal everyday activity. Recovery of your normal strength at this point can be slow for many people. The longer you had struggled with the injury before the surgery, the more the muscles have weakened, and the longer your recovery in this phase.

As with any surgery and recovery, results are not guaranteed, and what you put into it and how well you follow the instructions of the surgeon and physio will greatly affect your outcome.
 
Thanks guys. The surgeon did tell me that it would be done arthroscopic so that's a plus.

Appreciate the detailed response, Busa.
 
As far as the wipe with other hand comment earlier...
I had 3 boys, now aged 9, 15, 17...and babywipes are still in the house. YOU DONT HAVE TO BE ACCURATE AS LONG AS THOSE ARE IN THE HOUSE...FRONT TO BACK, SIDE TO SIDE...GTG!!!
 

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