shoulder surgery

**swimmer17** · 06-07-2010, 02:04 PM

I'm 17 years old and have multi-directional instability from swimming. I had a posterior and anterior capsular plication surgery to repair it exactly 11 months ago. I have 3 questions for somebody who has had surgery for instability. How long did it take to fully recover from this surgery? i am struggling with physical therapy and i am already 11 months out. Question 2 is my motion when I put my arm behind my back is pretty much non existant but I'm still forced to work on it even though its extremely painful. At this point do I even bother to work on it anymore because I'm not sure i'll get it back? And my last question is, my other shoulder is starting to be the same way. How long after my other shoulder starts bothering me do you think i have before inevitably being in the same situation? Thank you for reading my millions of questions. I would appreciate any advice. I'm more frustrated than you could believe.

**crackboy** · 06-07-2010, 02:38 PM

i had multi-directional instability. labral tear 3 to 9 interior/exterior and inferior

similar surgery as you plus with 6 anchors. i am roughly 3.5 months out now. compared to a normal non-active person, i am about 90% there. compared to an athlete and where i want to be i am somewhere about 80% ish. i still need more strength though my ROM is just about there. What is your ROM now? i just hit 160 for up over my head.

question 2: are you talking like scratching the small of your back? that is going to hurt like a bitch for the surgery you had. you don't want to force it either. slow gains is what you are shooting for.

it may not seem like it will come back but it will eventually.

how is your strength and motion? when you say struggling do you mean pain, lack of progress, or what?

**swimmer17** · 06-08-2010, 05:59 PM

First of all. congratulations on being as far as you are in your motion. I was nowhere near there at that point. About my motion. I am close to where I want to be. about 90% there. The therapists can get my arm to where they want it to go so technically I would say I have almost full motion with them but I cant get it to move there by myself and it's just painful. As far as my second question goes I can touch the small of my back but can't reach any farther than that and it is the most painful motion I have and would love to be able to do that motion again. And as far as your last question goes, I barely have any strength and i have been working on it for several months but I don't really see any progress, and I have been having a lot of pain in the past few months, sometimes the pain is quite similar to what it was before the surgery, which scares me quite a bit.

**crackboy** · 06-09-2010, 03:49 AM

SOunds to me like you didn't have an aggressive enough therapist or you wern't doing your homework.

regardless. its better to be able to get your arm somewhere with only pain holding you back. easier to fix that.
your therapist just needs to push through that pain. its going to fucking hurt when he does but if he doesn't you won't get that painfree motion.

the behind the back motion will come as your shoulder loosens up and you stretch more. each inch is going to be a battle.
i think you said you are going back to therapy. i hope it is with someone else. try and find one who does shoulders and is focused more on athletes than elderly

**swimmer17** · 06-09-2010, 12:39 PM

Thank you for the advice. One problem with me was that my doctor purposefully tightened my shoulder too much knowing that if he didn't I would have to repeat the surgery because of my lifestyle. So it is more of a struggle to get my motion back. The frustrating thing is I have been doing my homework for 10 months straight very faithfully, almost never missing a day. I didn't miss one day for 5 months straight and was doing rehab 4 times a day. Twice with therapist (one school trainer, and rehab therapist) and twice on my own at home. It just isn't cooperating with me that well. I am with the same therapist at therapy but I don't think she wasn't aggressive enough because she pushes me very hard, especially my school trainer. But idk. my shoulder's just not cooperating with me too well. They are really hoping to nip this pain in the butt with getting me a lot stronger. I am quite weak. If I lay on my stomach with my arms above my head on the floor I cannot lift my arm off the floor at all. So I'm hoping round 6 of rehab (4 times before surgery, twice after) for me works out in my favor. They are also encouraging me at rehab not to give up on the motion behind my back so I am going to stick with it and do my best.

**Skipig25** · 06-09-2010, 04:16 PM

I'm in about the same boat as you guys, but my doc even said before the surgery that he was going to make it so fucking tight I'd be maxed out at 150 degrees. guess it's better than dislocating, but I'm only a month of so in to rehab, so we'll see how it goes

**swimmer17** · 06-09-2010, 10:24 PM

So he made it tight enough that your never going to get your motion back?

Good luck with your rehab. The first few months are a bitch. It's the worst but it's worth it in the end.

**crackboy** · 06-10-2010, 10:30 AM

well with labral repairs you don't want to go to max mtion or else when it loosens up over time it will risk dislocating again. it will loosen on its on it just takes time.

if you are doin gyour homework you need better homework. see if you can get a different therapist

**swimmer17** · 06-10-2010, 02:25 PM

I live in a small town so we don't have many options for therapists and I don't want to drive to the town I got my surgery in. I have two options for therapy places and I went to the other one 6 years ago and I didn't like them. I love my therapist to death and they are tweaking my at home therapy and getting more aggressive in the rehab center so we'll see what happens within the next month or so.

If I don't really see progress in pain or in strength within a month or so then my orthopedic wants to see me back in his office. Any idea what might happen if I need to go see him again?

**crackboy** · 06-10-2010, 10:10 PM

its possible your shoulder is freezing which would explain the lack of movement. if that happens you might need to have the doctor go back in to free it

**swimmer17** · 06-10-2010, 11:18 PM

Ok. Well, I would hope we wouldn't have to do that. I know I can expect to possibly need this surgery again in 5 years or so and possibly in my other shoulder too but I certainly would not want to do another surgery so soon anyway.

I'll definitely keep posting on here with what progress I make. Hopefully I'll have a lot of good news to put up.

**jgr81** · 06-11-2010, 02:15 PM

i had the same problem as you, really loose shoulders growing up, and a history of dislocating my right one constantly as a kid. fast forward to turning 25, taking one bad fall on my snowboard and the labrum was toast. i had surgery in spring of 08, and it's great now. but, it took a lot of time to feel normal. last summer it was strong enough to do most crossfit workouts, but obviously not as much ROM as the other shoulder, but it's pretty good. my doc made it really tight too.

your other shoulder takes a beating during this time cuz you favor it so much, mine hurt soooo bad. but eventually when you get strong enough the pain goes away in both. no pain in either anymore, can do pushups/pullups fine, etc. i thought it would never get better, but it did. the first year was rough though, i'm not gonna lie. i had great PT that really pushed me as well. it didn't help that i also had a torn ACL, but i just got that fixed a month ago ;-)

at 11 months you really should'nt be having a lot of trouble. i was doing full blown crossfit workouts by may or so, and that was about 14 months after my surgery. i'd definitely get it checked out to make sure it's all good. keep pushing yourself, don't give up, you will get back to normal eventually. Hang in there!

**swimmer17** · 06-11-2010, 02:30 PM

igr, How far out of surgery are you now? I know the doctor said for some people it can take two years to feel normal but I just don't feel like everything's right with my shoulder. i feel like i should be doing quite a bit better than I am now. Not perfect. I know i won't be perfect, maybe never be perfect. But much better than I am. and you say that you have no pain and feel completely normal now?

**Snowmiser** · 06-12-2010, 08:55 AM

Hi swimmer17!

I'm 3 months post op after circumfrential or pan tear of labrum. Also had a bankhart repair and capsular reduction. I'm doing really well. I swim competitively and just started back in the pool a couple of weeks ago. This injury has really helped my rotation, because if I'm not rotating, I'm in pain. I have excellent rom and my strength is great. I still have a lot of work to go to be 100% but I'd say I'm at 80% right now. My insurance sucks so I only had 10 visits to the therapist, so I've been on my own for most of my rehab. It will get better. Even if your shoulder is locked, I've heard that that will break free with time too. "Be patient Grasshopper"!

**swimmer17** · 06-12-2010, 11:30 AM

That's impressive Snowmiser! Congratulations on your surgery going so well. I wasn't allowed to get back in the pool until about 3 1/2 months out of surgery but I swam competitively with one arm until I was allowed to use both. lol. I guess I wasn't going to let it stop me. I'm amazed at the fact that your doing so well already. Good for you. What was your secret?

**Snowmiser** · 06-14-2010, 06:27 PM

Wow, swimming competitively with one arm is quite impressive swimmer17! I used the pully to work out my shoulder several times a day. I have a 2 year old who's almost 30lbs. so my strength came back rather quickly because it had to!

. It sounds like your motivated and that's key to your rehab!

**swimmer17** · 06-14-2010, 09:30 PM

Thank you Snowmiser. Yes, I must say I swam quite slow, obviously with one arm and not being able to dive it's a pretty slow time. But it was faster than I thought and I did beat a girl one time. lol. And I'm a very stubborn person and won't let this beat me. That's the only reason I made it this far. I refuse to give up. But the motivation is slowly slipping. I have my up weeks and my down weeks. Due to the pain I have been in a VERY down week for a few weeks actually. I have my first rehab appointment tomorrow morning (last one was just an eval) and I am hoping they might put me into focus again so I can get ready for the next swim season. Even if I can't really swim this summer I can accept that but I need to have a perfect senior year swim season!

**Snowmiser** · 06-15-2010, 01:08 PM

Went through a couple of down weeks myself swimmer17, so I know what you're going through. Stay positive and focused and you'll get there! Don't try to hurry this thing! Baby steps!!!! Then this fall, you can go earn yourself a swimming scholarship!

Keep on keepin' on!
~Anne~

**swimmer17** · 06-15-2010, 08:46 PM

Thank you Snowmiser. This site is so helpful to clear my mind. I had my first rehab session today. I've been to that place so many times I should be put on the payroll. lol. I have been in so much pain today afterwards. They found all my weak spots. I don't know how they do it but they know everything. I wanted so badly to put my sling back on today because I couldn't dangle my arm so I was sick of holding it up at work. It's such a vicious cycle, this pain thing. You need to get strong and do your exercises, but it's so hard to do your exercises efficiently because the pain is so bad, but the pain's not gonna go away unless you get stronger. Ugh. It's so frustrating.

**swimmer17** · 07-01-2010, 11:42 AM

At my rehab the other day they did a massage on a muscle that was apparently super tight. Of course I had no idea what they were talking about. The entire area that they did the "nice" massage on is now bruised. That massage brought tears to my eyes. I had to take 2 weeks off because I got my tonsils out. I think it helped a lot because before my shoulder was so flared up that I couldn't do anything but now I rested it and I'm doing my exercises and stretches better than before.

**Skidog** · 07-02-2010, 08:22 AM

Originally Posted by swimmer17

At my rehab the other day they did a massage on a muscle that was apparently super tight. Of course I had no idea what they were talking about. The entire area that they did the "nice" massage on is now bruised. That massage brought tears to my eyes. I had to take 2 weeks off because I got my tonsils out. I think it helped a lot because before my shoulder was so flared up that I couldn't do anything but now I rested it and I'm doing my exercises and stretches better than before.

Crazy dude...according to my surgeon the 2 WORST surgeries to have are Tonsils as an "adult" ( i think you're close to qualifying

) and shoulder surgery..

I am surprised with my "recovery". roughly 4 weeks out of surgery and im mostly out of the sling at home and using the arm much more than i expected. I start PT next week...im sure thats going to suck but it is what it is.

Good luck with the continued recovery.

**swimmer17** · 07-03-2010, 03:22 PM

Yeah. I sure can pick em' can't I?

The two longest recoveries in the universe. lol.

Glad your doing so well. I wasn't allowed out of my sling at all for 6 weeks. Yes, rehab is a bitch. I hate it with a passion. I would most definitely recommend taking your meds. You got a different surgery than me so I'm sure you have better motion than I did. So it might not be quite as bad. When I went in I had no motion (literally 0 degrees) at all for external and internal rotation. And I had 10 degrees straight arm lifting to go straight up above your head. So it was the worst pain of my life for probably 4 months at least. And it's still pretty painful and my year anniversary is next Wednesday, July 7. But that's only when trying to get athletic motion, a little further than they need to push it for functional motion. Do you have any motion right now or have you not moved it at all?