Now I’m scared

first B R E A T H E!!!!!!

Now, my surgery was 2 years ago January! i was in PT by month 4!

completely healed and doing yoga a gain by month 8.

if you decide to wait its up to you. But PT wont heal a tear. It can help for those who dont have severe injuries I'm sure.

Please get a second or even a 3rd opinion!

If the MRI showed you have a large tear you need it repaired as it can get worse. The fact that you experience pain now from it during certain movements shows you it's something that should be addressed and surgery is the only way of fixing it.

Your question seems to be whether you can put it off so you can continue working. That's something to talk to your orthopedic specialist about. He'll advise you on that as best he can but the decision lies with you. Ask him if the tendon has retracted as that causes issues in fixing it. Ask your ortho if waiting will worsen the chances of a successful surgery outcome. Then make your decision.

I know what you mean about dealing with pain it's difficult. It was difficult for me too, thank god I had an ice machine to help me get through it as well as therapists who did the electro-stim, massage, ultrasound therapy on my arm weekly.

Getting a 2nd opinion might make you feel better about your decision and a trial of PT is often at least helpful in helping to make the decision about whether to commit to surgery.

I had surgery 3 yrs ago for full thickness supraspinatus tear and infraspinatus tear. turned out the biceps tendon and labrum was torn as well. I am a Physical Therapist so I waited 5 weeks before even going to the Dr. I was pretty sure I had torn the rotator cuff. ( also didn't want to miss my trip to Hawaii by having a Dr tell me I needed surgery.) After I saw the Dr he sent me for MRI, gave me diagnosis on phone and said I needed surgery. I was hesitant and he offered to see me and do cortisone injection.

I got a cortisone injection first, which did help reduce pain and restore range of motion. I saw their PT for 1 quick visit and did a week of exercise and thought about it. I read a lot of articles and talked to a PT and OT friend about it. Both of them recommended the surgery given the MRI results. I considered not having surgery but was worried that if the tendon retracted more, it might not be repairable and I need my arm to be fully functional for work. So I bit the bullet and had surgery. It was 5 months from time of injury to date of surgery. The literature says the sooner you do the repair the better outcome but there is also literature supporting conservative intervention first. I figured I had done my own PT for about 6 weeks already. I would only be guessing at this point as to how I would be now had I not had the surgery. Many people who are not very active and do not have physical jobs choose to forgo surgery or wait. I was actually feeling pretty good the day of my surgery with good range and less pain. But I knew it was risky with my profession and active lifestyle to not do something.

I took 6 months off because I have a physical job and patient safety would be at risk as well as mine if I went back too soon. I did go back to work, riding bike, doing housework etc. Recovery and rehab was painful. If I had a desk job I would have been back to work much sooner. some people are back to desk jobs after just a couple weeks as long as you don't need to drive. Pain is a personal thing. I only needed narcotics for 4-5 days. I slept in a recliner chair for 4 nights. My Mom came to help me for 3 weeks. That was a necessity. Having to have the bicep repair, I think, made my recovery a little more painful and prolonged than had it just been the rotator cuff. My HMO paid for very little therapy afterward (only 1 visit a week) and I paid out of pocket for an additional visit a week with a friend of mine who I knew did good work.

All that being said, I do still have some tendon pain (from the bicep repair, I believe) But I also try to lift weights, ride bike, do yard work and often overdo it. Do not believe all the nightmare stories you read in blogs will happen to you. There are just as many good outcome stories as there are nightmare stories. I had my ups and downs. I know lots of people who have had successful surgical repairs. I also have seen people suffer greatly with failed surgeries. Find a Dr you are fully confident with. Discuss all aspects and possibilities with the surgeon, including all possible outcomes. Definitely have a support system in place for recovery time. If your insurance has a long wait time for surgery, you could schedule it and still change your mind while you wait. I had a 3 month wait to do surgery once I decided.

I will wish you the very best recovery whatever decision you make.

Hi, one thing they don't often tell you is the level of pain you can get through ant sort of shoulder surgery.

I have a decent pain threshold... But post op pain was excruciating.

You will need someone to help you around the house, shopping etc literally you won't be able to wash yourself.

DO NOT forget to take painkillers before the anesthesia wears off like me!

If you can take a month off... That will be fine. As an accountant you won't be doing anything that messes your shoulder up.

I had 2 months off because my job is 2 hands and usually shoulder height or above.

I had my surgery last May and I still get pain with certain movements... Also the cold weather brings on pain.

But it is alot better than before.

The first 2 weeks are the worse.... Then several weeks after will get progressively better with doing physio.

You really should push tht physio so it heals quicker and with better range of movement.

I'm being as honest as I can... You have dark days for those first couple weeks.

I was chewing my lip and tongue off on the drugs I was given.

I stopped taking them as I had too many side effects... Mainly Insomnia, zero appetite and the whole chewing my tongue etc

The older you get, the more likely the injury will get so severe you will need surgery anyways... The older you are during surgery the slower the healing time.

You will be fine, just put things in place and prepare well. Something I didn't. I had my partner on hand though and we made a bed downstairs for the first week.

Assess what you can and can't do... I put my surgery off for a yr. But I ended up not being able to sleep on my left side, putting my arm around my partner... Not being cable to hold my baby son with confidence.

I felt way to unable as a human to not have surgery.

Good luck and use these forums to chat... In my first 2 weeks post op, it was great to speak with people that were going through the same or had been.

Nath

The doctors will tell you the longer to wait to have the surgery the harder it will be to repair the tare. I also had a complete tare. You have options. How much sick and vacation time do you have built up? You can be granted to take 12 weeks of FMLA. Check with your HR department if your company is large enough to have one. My job is very physical luckily my company also offer light duty for 90 days after my FMLA. Being an accountant if your job allows you to you can come back to work after 4 to six weeks with restrictions. First talk to your surgeon then find out with your employee if you can come back to work with restrictions. The restrictions will be like no lifting with the injured arm , no pain medication while working, no physical use of the injured arm. You will be going to physical therapy once or twice a week four an hour each time. You will be able to write and type with the injured arm. Find out all your options ask questions! My biggest problem was sleeping with that dam sling. I tried the recliner that did not work form me. Each night I laid in my bed with help from my family I propped my arm up with pillows. Good luck the first week is the worse but you'll get through it!

Wow, thank you all for your quick responses. I had a total melt down last night after i wrote that while trying to sleep. My mind would just NOT shut down & all i could think about was "don't sleep on your side, don't sleep on your side" yet i'm a side sleeper so when laying on my back didn't work, my mind went crazy thinking about this surgery! I finally said to hell with it, slept on my side & was at last able to fall asleep. I feel better this morning 😃

My job will be great about allowing me the time i need but since i'm the only one that does the payroll & accounting for the payroll, i feel awful about leaving them in a lurch without anyone. That's why I was hoping that I would only need a month or so of totally not working & then I could work from home. Do y'all think that's possible?

Also did anyone do anything to "prep" for surgery? I was thinking if I went for PT to build up the muscle around the tear that might be helpful.

Finally can anyone recommend a specific tens unit to buy? I don't think my insurance will pay for that so I'm looking to do it on my own dime. Oh, i also have access to an ice machine (girlfriend had knee replacement) so should i be using that before the surgery to help with pain?

sorry for all the questions but as usual, my mind is racing

thanks

thanks so much for the recommendation on the tens machine & the youtube video. I will definitely be checking out both! You're right about my anxiety being the fear of the unknown....I HATE not knowing what will happen & not being able to be fully prepared! I have an appt for a second opinion but that won't be until 5/19 & i guess i can't make my nuts until then so I'll try to calm down.

thanks again for everyone's input & if anyone has any positive stories, I'd love to hear that too 😃

Hi there! So, I just had the surgery. I am on week 10. It does hurt. You will be out of work for several months, because even typing right away is difficult. It takes a year to heal from rotator cuff surgery BUT you can be up and typing within 8 weeks. Your mobility will be limited, but you learn to quickly adapt to your pain. Just wear your brace and adapt to your environment, you can, you will, and you must. (A year long healing does not mean you will be immobile for the full year, but you do have to take your healing in stages. There is no getting around the healing phase.) The tens machine will not help you. The only thing that machines like that do at, say, a chiropractors office or a PT office is to help with the pain a small bit, and that's temporary. It does not heal the tear. The thing about a tear is that if you do not take care of it, it will get bigger, and the bigger the tear, the more invasive the surgery, the longer the healing, the harder it is to repair, the greater the risk of reinjury. I hope you see where I am going here. A rotator cuff tear does not heal on its own. Period. There is no amount of PT that will heal it. Taking off your shirt/sleeping pain means that you have a serious problem as those are basic things. Once you have pain sleeping, it's time for surgery. Trust me. I have been through this for a long time. I injured myself on a job, and the pain just got worse and worse. As far as 'blowing it and moving your arm', it takes a lot to reinjure your repair (unless you have one of those hard to repair tears with raggedy bits of tissue that the doctor has to work with to sew back onto the bone), but you will have setbacks. You will feel good, well, you won't be in TOTAL agony, feeling 'good' is not happening for several months, anyway, you will be healing at 10 or 12 weeks, you will have a bit more mobility and feel good, then you WILL go to reach for something and overextend, or you will pick up something a little too heavy, and it will send you back several paces and you will have to rest for two weeks until you are back on track. It's normal to want to go about your activities while you are healing and suffer a small setback. But make no mistake about it, you are never going to FEEL LIKE you want to lift weights/go nuts to the point of reinjuring yourself. The pain and sensitivity are too great for you to 'mistakenly' go hang gliding and reinjure yourself. Setbacks remind you that you just had surgery. I've had two so far and my doctor says 'there is no way that you tore that repair unless you were swinging from a tree with one arm. Your repair is so strong because the integrity of your tissues were ideal. It's a setback. Nothing more. They happen. You just have to wait it out and move gently until you get back on track'. So, no, there is no way that you are going to reinjure yourself. Because even a small movement, or something a tiny bit too heavy will make you cry out in pain. And here is the most important thing, have the surgery NOW while the tear is manageable. The more you tear it, the less success they have of tacking it back onto the bone, also, the older the tear, the more ragged it is, meaning, the pieces that are supposed to be reattached to the bone are too raggedy and cannot be sewn down strongly. Ideally you want a fresh, smallish tear with good integrity in order to see high success of this healing. The thing is, if you don't take care of it now, you will regret it later. The pain is there from healing, it takes a long time to heal, but afterward your R.O.M. is as good as new, that you will wonder why you didn't have the surgery earlier. I want you to understand that this is a serious surgery, but if you don't have it, your injury will only get more painful. The thing is, you are already experiencing the kind of pain that you will have during your healing process. Just imagine the pain you have when trying to pull on a shirt and think of feeling that constantly. THAT is what the healing feels like. That constant pain. You can manage it. It's not the worst thing in the world. But you gotta do it. I have a friend who has what I have. I took care of mine relativity quickly after the injury, he has waited years, and had tons of cortisone shots and now he is looking at a FULL TEAR, and the possibility that he cannot even have the surgery because the injury is so bad. His doctors tell him that it is now open shoulder because the window to get arthroscopy is now closed, his tear is so bad. And because he kept getting the cortisone shots, he was using his arm and made a mess of his shoulder, and the shots have started to deteriorate his shoulder mechanism. The doctors tell him that he has a great chance of reinjury because of the shots and because he kept using his arm. The tendon is now completely severed from the bone. Not good. So, take this with a grain of salt if you want to, but if you want a pain free retirement, I suggest you get the surgery now, go back to work in 3 months (because you can, if you are just doing office work) and nurse yourself to health. By the time you are ready to retire, your shoulder will be good as new.

well I FINALLY got my second opinion and, as most of you told me, i need surgery. I'm going to try to schedule it for the beginning of July but still nervous. Does anyone know what i can do to "prep" for the surgery? should i be wearing a sling now to sort "baby" it & possibly prevent any further damage since i'm still about a month out from surgery? Or, should i be doing ROM exercises & trying to make it stronger?

Also both doctors told me i could go back to work after about a week. I can work from home & just need to be on the computer typing. Was anyone else able to do that after a week? My boss will probably let me work for a few hours, rest a while & then go back to work when i can. Will take this time before surgery to practice using my left hand but how did y'all do at typing & when were you able to.

any other tips or recomendations prior to surgery would be much appreciate. Thanks