Rotator Cuff Surgery Incoming -- Journal Beginning 08.19.2011

[grindle]

Hi All,

I'm finally going in for surgery for my rotator cuff tear. I meant to write earlier to discuss the goings on but sadly other things kept me from doing so. The short short is I have a "distinct" supraspinatus tear 95% of the way through the 'heavy/mid' portion as well as a small tear in the labrum, some arthritis in my AC joint and something else I can't remember -- I unfortunately don't have the diagnosis sheet in front of me but I'll update this with the specifics later. 6 months of PT prior to the diagnosis via arthrogram/MRI -- I was confident that I could 'fix myself', cest la vie -- it was unable to solve the issue although it did make my supporting muscles significantly stronger. After the doctor received the results he essentially said, "Well, THIS is why you're not feeling so good. I'd love to tell you this isn't something we should address, but I really can't do that."

So the doc is going to clean me up and send me on my way. I'll go into more detail when I come back and I hope to keep this thread going with my progress and the way I feel from day-to-day. I realize there are a number of journals such as this but a wide variety is better than no variety at all.

So I will see you soon my friends, wish me luck! :)

[grindle]

Well, the surgery was successful. "Happy juice, nerve block in the neck, general anesthesia with Zofran, and a two hour rotator cuff surgery. The doctor severed the final 5% of the tendon, cleaned up the ragged edges, sutured up the tear and anchored it all in a happy little bow to the bone. Minus the bow.

I woke up without complication and was sent home an hour afterwards. The nerve block lasted until about 3:30AM this morning (the surgery was at 9am) and I must say, I didn't feel a damn thing until it wore off. I was a bit stoned out of my gourd due to the anesthesia, nerve block, and Vicodin, but the actual pain really didn't start until around 3:30ish. As a side note, flicking your numb fingers after the nerve block is awesome is hysterical, you know it's your hand but it doesn't 'act' like it.

I was not able to get comfortable to sleep -- I tried laying in bed against one of those big body pillows with armrests. Tried laying up against a bunch of pillows, an armchair, sitting on the floor against the bed, a rocking chair, and even standing. I decided after a while of standing that if I actually fell asleep it'd suck picking my dead body up off the floor in the morning. Finally I did get an hour of sleep using the armrest body pillow -- When I woke up it was to quite possible one of the sharpest pains I have ever felt. I never really noticed how many little movements involve the shoulder area. Getting up, walking, everything hurt. After taking the Vicodin it all turned into a dull pain unless I made a sudden wrong movement which then led to the sharp pain.

My fiancee is taking very good care of me and I've been taking the Vicodin every 4 hours. I did have an "episode" earlier where as I was taking a sip of water it went down the wrong tube and I was in some serious pain when I started coughing. My body is still recovering from that, I am still very achy.

A couple of things to note that suck about 'losing' the use of your main arm/shoulder.

- brushing your teeth
- flossing
- wiping (ahhhh)
- eating
- everything else

But so far it honestly isn't TOO too bad. I am able to remove the dressing and have my first spongebath tomorrow. Sling for 4-6 weeks and post-op meeting this Friday to remove sutures and discuss the procedure, etc. with the doc.

So that's it for now, I'll continue to update when possible. Thanks for reading!

[FLbeach321]

Good luck my friend. Keep the good spirits up. It's a roller coaster ride. I had my left 1 done and now going in 4 the right one in 2 days.

[grindle]

Good luck my friend. Keep the good spirits up. It's a roller coaster ride. I had my left 1 done and now going in 4 the right one in 2 days.

Hi Beach, thanks for the support! Right now I've swapped out the Vicodin for a strong prescription Ibuprofen -- so not a high-powered painkiller but a step down to ween myself off. I've noticed the Vicodin gives a bit of constipation so I want to get off it sooner rather than later.

Sharp pain is mostly gone unless I move the wrong way, now it's more dull and easier to deal with. Took the big dressings off my shoulder at the request of one of the nurses and put regular bandaids over each of the 5 'incisions'. Still icing and after removing what seemed like a 2 inch dressing I certainly feel the ice much better.

First day of post op PT is tomorrow so I'll write about that then.

Beach, sorry to hear you have to go in for a second time. Was it just the accumulation of damage lifting with your other shoulder or was it a random incident? Hope it goes well for you. Keep me updated, I'd love to hear how things are going.

I hope this helps someone somewhere down the line, but in a nutshell it's not as bad as I expected thus far.

[FLbeach321]

Not sure what it's from this time. The first time was a trauma dislocation. This was probably a just over time of lifting and sports. I kept a pretty detailed journal on here of the first time. I know what I'll do different this time is to ice, ice, ice right away to speed up my healing time. I was out of the gym for about 5 months the first time, but I made a pretty good recovery. Still have some pain but nothing to complain about. No matter what surgery a person has, it usually takes a good 2 years to be back totally normal. I'm definitely more mentally prepared this time! Just don't try to move that arm too much too soon since you had rotator repair. Listen to the therapist.

[beachguy498]

Good luck! I pre-habbed my shoulder late 2010 into early 2011 and I'm doing okay with it. I'd say I'm about 95% back to where I was a year ago and almost pain-free in my day to day activities as well as lifting. I'm holding off on the surgery right now, just too busy everywhere to be down even for a few weeks. My surgery will be similar to yours, mainly a clean up and the labrum repair is out of the question since the tear goes 360 degrees.

Yes, try to limit the vicodins to maybe to get you to sleep. I was on them and percodans years ago for major knee surgery and was advised to drink prune juice to offset the constipation and it worked, vile stuff though. My othopedic surgeon had me double up on Aleve, which does a pretty good job. And of course ice is always good.

Rob

[grindle]

Not sure what it's from this time. The first time was a trauma dislocation. This was probably a just over time of lifting and sports. I kept a pretty detailed journal on here of the first time. I know what I'll do different this time is to ice, ice, ice right away to speed up my healing time. I was out of the gym for about 5 months the first time, but I made a pretty good recovery. Still have some pain but nothing to complain about. No matter what surgery a person has, it usually takes a good 2 years to be back totally normal. I'm definitely more mentally prepared this time! Just don't try to move that arm too much too soon since you had rotator repair. Listen to the therapist.

Glad to hear you did so well with the first one, I imagine you'll hopefully have an easier time this go around at least mentally as you know what to expect. Thankfully my fiancee is actually studying to become a nurse so she's been flinging ice at me left and right. If you have quick access to your old journal I would love to read it. I believe your surgery is either today or tomorrow, do write and let me/us know how it went! :)


Good luck! I pre-habbed my shoulder late 2010 into early 2011 and I'm doing okay with it. I'd say I'm about 95% back to where I was a year ago and almost pain-free in my day to day activities as well as lifting. I'm holding off on the surgery right now, just too busy everywhere to be down even for a few weeks. My surgery will be similar to yours, mainly a clean up and the labrum repair is out of the question since the tear goes 360 degrees.

Yes, try to limit the vicodins to maybe to get you to sleep. I was on them and percodans years ago for major knee surgery and was advised to drink prune juice to offset the constipation and it worked, vile stuff though. My othopedic surgeon had me double up on Aleve, which does a pretty good job. And of course ice is always good.

Rob

Nicely done on the rehab! I tried it for about 6 months but it just wouldn't cut it, my cuff was just too shredded. Looks like you may not need surgery regarding the rotator cuff if you keep this up. Yea prune juice is something I've unfortunately been devouring, it's thoroughly disgusting, but I have stopped the Vicodin and am just using the Ibuprofen now. The pain isn't nearly as bad as it was so I can certainly cope with it with the ice -- I just endlessly worry that the pain I feel may not be normal, but I am pretty sure that's just in my head.

So... First day of PT went pretty well. I like my therapist and trust him so that's very important to what I hope will be a successful recovery. First session was the evaluation where he asked about the surgery and if I had any questions and so forth. He had me do a couple tests which interestingly enough in my opinion I didn't perform too well. One was gripping this big metal gripper that looked sort of like one of those large fancy 'Rabbit' bottle openers. It was essentially a grip test to see how much, if any, strength I lost. I tried it on both hands and the PT kind of frowned and said he needed to get me some putty.

Failure #1 haha

So he got me some putty and asked me to individually pinch my thumb and each of my fingers together over the putty. I can't explain to you how difficult it was for my ring finger and pinkie. My fingers are so weak!

Failure #2!!!

So I have to work on my grip/finger/forearm strength so I don't get some sort of impingement I guess. Next piece of the puzzle is when he took off my support sling. I was about ready to vomit with fear when he took my arm out, I thought I would have some serious pain. Lo and behold he started moving my arm around and I was so surprised at how little most of it hurt. Now granted he did not move it very far or very 'hard' but I was impressed at how much he was able to move it.

I layed (laid, lied?) down on the table and he asked me to let my arm go, don't provide any resistance so he could move my arm back and forth and side to side. This was also very difficult because I suppose subconsciously I was concerned that he'd drop my arm or something. So it took me a while to relax enough for him to do his work. He would move my arm in different directions and stop when he felt I got too achy. He then taught my fiancee how to do the movements so she could help me at home in between PT sessions so as to get some stretching done at home.

Next he showed me some wrist exercises and what appeared to be a variation of a bicep curl (no weight of course) which did not move or affect my shoulder. This allowed the other parts of my arm to stretch. That being said my bicep is connected to the supraspinitus tendon which is what I got worked on so I am not able to go full motion obviously, just a bit.

After all of that I was in all sorts of 'ache' so we iced it and I was sent on my way. Next appointment is on Thursday. In the meantime I will strengthen my wrists, hands and forearms, and do my brief 'stretches' with my better half.

So that's the scoop up until this point. Thanks for reading, I'll write more as I progress!

[beachguy498]

The first PT days are tough. They evaluated me first, "ranged me" (see how far I could move), had me doing some initial exercises and stretching. My PT bottomed out after 3 months and my surgeon advised me to save some of my PT allowance in case I went for the surgery.

At the end, they always iced me up, sometimes with stimulation. Most of the time when I got home, I was DONE for the day. Did they give you home exercises to do?

Rob

[FLbeach321]

Grindle,
My other journal is on here. I don't know how 2 find it other than doing a search. Try flbeach321 shoulder recovery journal. Or just try flbeach321 and search my posts. It's a very detailed journal. Good luck and keep your head up. It's a hard battle but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

[grindle]

The first PT days are tough. They evaluated me first, "ranged me" (see how far I could move), had me doing some initial exercises and stretching. My PT bottomed out after 3 months and my surgeon advised me to save some of my PT allowance in case I went for the surgery.

At the end, they always iced me up, sometimes with stimulation. Most of the time when I got home, I was DONE for the day. Did they give you home exercises to do?

Rob

Yea they gave me a couple of exercises outside the sling which essentially my fiancee' moving my arm up and down gently until she feels resistance or I scream in pain, whichever comes first. Then I have a couple of wrist, hand, and finger exercises such as a shaking someone's hand motion, grip ball, pinching putty with my fingers and so on.


Grindle,
My other journal is on here. I don't know how 2 find it other than doing a search. Try flbeach321 shoulder recovery journal. Or just try flbeach321 and search my posts. It's a very detailed journal. Good luck and keep your head up. It's a hard battle but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Awesome, I'll take a look at both, we can be miserable together haha

Update, yesterday was my 2nd day of PT -- ROM has significantly improved, he was able to move my arm vertically close to my head -- Muscle tissue and me cringing made him not go any further, but he was impressed. I am still worried about hurting myself while doing these exercises, but I think it is just in my head, he assures me that what I am doing is safe in that respect. Go in to the Dr. today to get the sutures removed along with the typical post-op stuff. Will report how that goes as well.