Rotator Cuff Surgery Experience

dsjohndrow
dsjohndrow Posts: 1,820 Member
edited December 19 in Fitness and Exercise
It is looking more and more like my shoulder is going to need to be repaired. I have done the PT, and the Cortisone shots and I am still having pain when moving in certain ways.

What is your experience? A couple of sites said that it is 6 weeks until it can be moved, and months until full recovery.

Replies

  • ShawnDMuth
    ShawnDMuth Posts: 270 Member
    I had that injury years ago. Have you done the exercises where you lie on your side and rotate a small amount of weight across your body( on your side, legs bend, hold weight at right angle with your arm and go from your stomach out to your hand being over your elbow without moving the elbow)? Then you do a side lateral raise, switch sides and repeat. Reps are usually 10-15 with maybe 5 lbs to start.
    I still have to do this occ. to kept it strong but I avoided surgery.
  • mibrewer413
    mibrewer413 Posts: 78 Member
    I had rotator cuff surgery in 1998 and it really helped a lot, had post operative pain afterwards which took a long time to go away because they had to shave down the bone inside but it was a different pain than the injury kind of pain. Just try to not aggravate it right now with a lot of arm exercises.
  • thpeek
    thpeek Posts: 76
    I had Rotator Cuff Surgery December 2009, December 2010 and again on June 2011 all on the same shoulder. Make sure you get a doctor that is good. My first two surgeries were failures due to a Doctor that had no business being a doctor even though he had awesome ratings. I changed Doctors and my new Doctor had to clean up and fix everything that my 1st Doctor screwed up like re-connecting my Bicept Tendon, Removing a Huge Cyst that had formed from the leaking joint fluid from the 1st two failed surgeries and since I had a complete tear of the Labrum completely off the bone I had to have 6 hooks and screws inserted to hold the labrum back onto the shoulder bone, plus he had to debride all the rough edges and use a grinder tool that would give me more room to rotate. It takes a long time to heal, physical therapy is essential. It has been 1 year since my last surgery and I am still not 100%. If I would have had a good doctor the 1st or 2nd time around I probably would be doing better. Now I have a partial tear on the other shoulder with lots of Arthritis, so I have been dreading going in for that one, good luck!
  • navygunner
    navygunner Posts: 36 Member
    did not need the surgery, maybe i should've, but the PT did the job. still to this day it still hurts depending on what i do. good luck keep us posted
  • itsanot
    itsanot Posts: 89 Member
    The surgery wasn't bad recovery was fairly easy for me, 4 days of not moving it, then I started pt for 6 weeks. I came back to work after 3 weeks though just light duty then turned loose with no restrictions at all after 6 weeks. Best thing I ever did, I don't know why I waited so long to have it fixed!
  • tcbutler
    tcbutler Posts: 146
    I have had the rotator cuffs in both shoulders repaired. The first one, the left one, was back in 2003. With that one, I had the supraspinatus repaired and bone spurs removed. It hurt like the ****ens, but I did my therapy and was back on light duty after four weeks and full duty after 2 1/2 months. It took close to a year, like the doctor said it would, until I was able to get back to lifting like I did before.

    Fast forward to June of last year when I had my right shoulder repaired. It sounds like my second one was a lot like thpeek's. The supraspinatus had to be repaired, two heads of the bicep tendons in the shoulder, bone spurs removed, and part of the clavicle cut off. Since this one was even more involved, it was about 2 months until I was able to go back to light duty and then about another 2 until I was back to full duty. The doctor said it would be about a year before I was able to go full bore with my workouts. It ended up only being 9 months, but that's because he did such a great job and I did a lot of physical therapy on my own at home on top of going to therapy.

    It feels great now, but I'm taking it a lot easier nowadays. No more lifting with a bar for more. I do a lot of body weight exercises now, mixed in with my new favorite: the kettlebells. I also still do some dumbell work, but swear I will not go back to using a bar. We'll see how that works since I used a bar for about 25 years, which both doctor's said attributed to my tears. They said it was from years of concentrating on bench press and military presses without working the smaller muscles in the shoulder.

    Oh well, I'm back to working out now. One of the hardest things for me to do after this latest surgery was pull-ups/chin-ups do to both the rotator cuff part and the bicep part. I am able to do them now, though still trying to work my way back up.

    If you need to have it done, it stinks and is very painful, but I would suggest getting done as soon as possible so you can recover and get yourself back good health again.
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