First - I'm glad I found this site! I've been going crazy wondering whether or not my shoulder surgery has caused me more pain than others.
I'm a 44 year old man. In April 2012 I was using a posthole digger to make a fence by the house and wound up in a big pickle. After getting started with the 3rd hole I felt an incredible pain in the right shoulder while working the posthole digger. After going to the Doc, I discovered that I'd torn a rotator cuff muscle, but it was one that is not normally torn. As it goes, I had a Subscapularis repair (100% tear). The surgery also involved repairing the biceps tendon, along with a subacromial decompression, a Mumford procedure, and posterior/inferior capsule releases. 2 weeks post surgery during a visit to the Doctor, he asked if I'd had a number of shoulder injuries in the past. I said that I have lived the life of a normal boy and man, i.e. plenty of contact sports, gym, sailing, outdoorsmanship, etc., but not one injury to the shoulder that I particularly remember. His reply was that he'd removed many more spurs from the shoulder than he was used to normally seeing for a man my age, and that there were areas of heavy arthritis and bare bone with no cartilage.
As many of you have described, the pain during healing has been hard to handle for a great deal of time. Sleep was sparse and sporadic. After a couple of months I began to wonder if things were going to get better because the pain was persistant...and after not being able to do anything physical and being practically dormant with any activity it all began to add up and I started getting very depressed. Physical therapy was good, but proved to be very painful getting the range of motion and a little bit of strength back. After 6 months I finally noticed that the severity of pain was beginning to subside, but not rapidly. I'm in the middle/end of the 7th month and the pain has reduced quite a bit - until I use that arm. Then it becomes painfully inflamed and stays that way for at least 2 if not 3 days, even after taking anti-inflammatories and using ice. :-@ :-(
I still go through bouts of depression because I feel useless...things still aren't right and it appears that they never will be. To this day the mechanics of the shoulder feel drastically different. I even look lopsided and I feel week on that side, which is my dominant side. There's a lot of peripheral pain, snapping in the shoulder and elbow, etc. If I use the arm overhead I swear I can feel bone against bone - talk about ouch! It pains me just to think about throwing a football or baseball with my boy.
It's not something that I had a choice with...now I have to live with this. But the one thing that I wish Doctors would do is explain to the patient that following this type of surgery there won't be a snap comeback. I guess if they did, they'd scare patients off and hurt their income!! :-D
Thanks for allowing me to sound off...I've read many of yours as well and believe me, I readily identify and I definitely feel your pain!
Hi All,
It is obvious that everyone has a different experience and that each surgery is unique. I had surgery for a Full Tear Rotator Cuff on Sept. 19th. He shaved my clavicle bone and smoothed my frayed torn bicep muscle as well. It was suggested that I wear a sling, which I did for a few days.
2 weeks following surgery, I started occupational therapy. At 6 weeks I returned to work. (computer work) I found that after the first week back, I was experiencing shoulder/back/neck pain. Like a knot in the muscle. I booked 2 massage therapy sessions that remedied that!
My situation is unique in that I do not have use of my other arm (polio) so I was driven to recover quickly. I am able to use my arm well and am very pleased with the minimal pain and discomfort. It is now 9 weeks post op and I am able to do nearly everything I need to do.
Have faith. Listen to your body. Do your therapy and get a good massage.
Good Luck to all,
DC
I think i have every one beet,i am going on 4 years with severe pain in my neck from roto cuff surgury gone bad 1 hour after i woke up,3 shots of morphine cause from all the pain in my neck,i can't find anyone to operate on me unless i have a spinal cord implant put in.It looks like the Doctor screwed up my life.on top of all the pain from a bad surgury gone bad i also had addiational pain on top of all that,all of my doctors missed that.Guess what,it was my heart,after i told them all the answers for 2 years i had to get bypass surgury on 2-14-12 and i am still waiting.ps i think i need a lawyer
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I hope your doctors appt. went well. I see my doctor again this thursday 11/29/12. I have had 2 rotator cuff surgeries about 3 months apart. I have a funny feeling mine is retorn again because the pain is so bad. I hope not. I don't think I can do it again. I fell at work over 1 year ago. Does any one know if the pain is just worse because it's the second time I had surgery, and if this is normal? Thanks and I wish all of you well and Happy Holidays!
i am 11 months with torn rotator and labrum pain still there aches badly no full range shoulder mishapen by muscle and 14 weeks of two therapist didnt help anyone have an option to get better
After reading some of these posts, I guess I should count my blessings.
I am a year out from rotation cuff surgery (99% tear supraspinatus) and there is still some tightness that I just can't seem to get rid of. Each day, I still perform much of the exercises and stretching from my rehab.
I tore my rotator cuff while bench pressing in November 2012 (funny thing, I felt it tear but I didn't feel any searing pain).
I had rotator cuff surgery Friday, Jan. 6, 2012. There was only one time where the pain was pretty intense and that was about 24 hours directly after surgery. I worked from home Jan. 9 and 10 (also my first day of PT). I was back in the office Jan. 11.
I followed my therapists instructions to a T. I never missed a session and did my exercises and stretching 3x a day religiously and cut back to 2X when they instructed and eventually phased it down to 1x a day.
For the most part, I feel great (very little pain). I feel like I'm at 85%. I began running in April and have started doing leg, arm and chest weight workouts (light weights). I just started doing a shoulder work out with weights (5-lb. overhead presses to start).
Here is my dilemma:
I still have the tightness. When I push a towel up the wall and try to get my arm as close to 90 degrees parallel with the wall, I feel a pull that is almost in my armpit. During rehab, the PTs told me that my pectoralis minor had locked up to hold the shoulder in place. They said over time it would dissipate. I keep doing these chest stretching exercises where I place my hands on opposite sides of a doorway and lean forward, stretching my chest.
Does anyone know of any other exercises I can do to eliminate this last piece of tightness?
So, should I assume by all of these posts ,that it is not worth it to have the surgery?? Just curious, i haven't been diagnoosed yet, but started having pain in my right upper arm about 3 months ago, thought at first that I had just pulled a muscle or something. But it has eventually gotten worse and just in this last week it has become unbearable.
Talk to your doctor. I'm 3 weeks into recovery also and feel like I do something "stupid" daily to hurt shoulder; last night was a blinger! My appt with doc is in 3 days and I need to find out if I'm impeding healing.
Thanks, Kath3, for your post.
I had various rotator cuff surgery three times on my left shoulder before I got to the point where I was mostly pain free. Last July I had my right shoulder done and for a while all was (seemingly) well. Unfortunately I am going back for a second surgery next week. I hope this is the last time.
Had My Surgary 13 months ago. Recoverery is a very time consuming process. Do not expect relief in a couple weeks. A torn rotator cuff is extremely traumatic. My surgary was arthroscopic and I also tore part of the bicep in that arm. To top it off I ended up with MRSA on the inner bicep and ribcage area were it was rubbing from the sling. This made it extremely difficult to wear the sling which is very important for the first monh or two. MSA by the way will make you wish you had surgary pain. The fact that I could not wear my sling the healed shoulder is off from my other shoulder. I have a full range of motion and at about a year can say that strength is fairly equal on both sides. Ridng My Motorcycle and work help quite a bit but a day does not go past that I do not feel a remonder it was injured. I recently began to work on strengthening not just my shoulder but both sides and am using power bands Heavy Duty everlast bands. For a fairly decent workout to strengthen and build stamina. Along with push ups I do them against a counter for now considering I am a fairly large boy but working on that. exercise leaves me feeling it. More of a burn but that could also indicate rebuiling muscle. Bottom line I ma maybe 90% bac to what it was before. In some aspects better because of the fact I am in my 50's and had some burs and arthritis ground down or removed so the constant grinding and Aching is better than before. I do not think it will ever be 100% But I intend to continue working out osing weight and building muscle. Only thing I take for pain is aspirin. was only on my original pain meds for less than two weeks. but like i said MRSA has a way to make you forget everthing else. Just follow the therapists advice don't force it. Take it one day at a time. And stretch stretch stretch. Keep it limber once it locks you are screwed. And a year or so before you can build strength is actually normal
Your problem may not even be a rotator cuff issue. I could not lift my arm above my head without using my other arm to get it up there and bring it back down but the pain was minimul accept for when I tore it
I had mine about the same tima as yours I do push up off my bathroom sink and Kitchen counters. I hold the down position for a while, Power bands are good for getting a stretch also
I hope I heal quickly this time. I'm going in this Tuesday Feb 26, 2013 for a biochemical test. After 2 rotator cuff surgeries it looks like they are going to do a third. Doctor wants to shave my collar bone and see if it's torn again! Thank you for sending your message....gives me hope. Bertie