Surgery on shoulder

However you decide to handle your pain, I wish you the best. Rotator cuff surgery recovery is a BEAR! But, as long as you can follow your docs orders and maintain a good physical therapy regiment, you will get better. Best wishes!

I had my left shoulder and rotator cuff done in May and my right total reverse shoulder replacement done on October 3.  The left shoulder replacement was so much different. With the right one I have pain when I wake up.  The pain is really bad and I have been told to use a pillow under it but it really does not help.  I am on my second week of put 3 x a week and they say I am doing really well except there is tightness in the shoulder which they are working on and say it is loosening up.   I previously went to pain management for about 8 years.  In the beginning the pains meds helped, I was on OxyContin and oxycodone.  Since they changed rules on pain meds i was no longer able to get OxyContin so they tied me on lyrica which made me sleepy, on the 2nd night of taking it I fell asleep in the shower, fell down and hit my head.   I immediately discontinued it.  They then tried me on a patch, I can't remember the name but it took about 3 days to get into my system and it worked well but after about 3 months I had an allergic reaction to it and it had to be discontinued. The dr had me try a placebo patch to find out if it was the medication or the patch.  It was the patch.  So I was back to oxycodone but it really didn't help much so eventually they had me try Gabapentin which helped some but one night when I took it I felt like I was drunk and disoriented so that was discontinued.  Finally I was put on morphine, 1 pill every 12 hours and oxycodone every 4-6 hours as needed.  I took that until my first total reverse shoulder replacement in May. Once I had the surgery I never went back to pain management and have been off pain meds except for the ones prescribed right after my surgeries.  The pain management meds took some of the edge off but I still had pain, I am so much better since my surgeries and without the pain meds.  If you do go to pain management and they suggest the patch it will take a few days to a week to get in your system but it really does help.  I hope this information will be helpful to you.  

Doing a lot better now that I've been in pt and out of the sling. I don't see yet dr til after my vacation so I can't ask him. But I'm going on vacation in 9 days. Are rollercoasters out of the picture? As of now I'm 6 weeks post surgery.