well this is actually an update of my previous post about my nagging knee and shoulder injuries. It turns out I had torn the labrum in my right shoulder from 2-6 o’clock and did some damage to the bone there as well. 4 anchors later things should be attached. The surgeon also found a good sized chunk of labrum wedged in the back of my shoulder which he cut out. I’m wondering if this could be what happened when I injured my shoulder a couple years ago from my training log. I went in for surgery on 6/3/11 and just got the sling off. In trying to find the root of my knee issues I’ve also discovered I have planar faciitis so I’ve been given shoe inserts, injections, and anti-inflammatories to try and help with that.
For the shoulder I’ve been told 6-12 months. Can anyone else who’s been through that confirm it will actually take THAT long before I’ll be back to normal? I’ve been told I’m not to do any lifting of anything with that arm for the next 6 months outside of physical therapy. Any tips on what I can push and what I should leave alone when it comes to pushing my self in PT?
Haven’t had labral repair myself, but that is pretty typical rehab/recovery time. You can train around it, single arm work, and lower body (without flaring up the knee/“plantar fasciitis”) Do the homecare exercises your PT gives you, and make sure you work mobility first rather than load. You want to make sure you have a good range before you start trying to strengthen.
I had a labral tear repair last September, and I’d say those were fairly good numbers. You have 4 anchors in your arm that need to heal and become “one” with the joint. Work too hard, too fast and you risk damaging them.
I couldn’t do any overhead work for the first 9 months- just started doing some love overhead presses a couple weeks ago.
The shoulder still hurts sometimes at the attachment point - but less and less often. It takes a full 12 months for the thing to heal properly, so settle in, do the work your PT gives you and know you’ll be strong and ready when the time is right.
Quick update. I’ll be 12 weeks post-op this friday. Still doing all the PT stuff almost every day however the shoulder is significantly better. Mobility wise I’m probably around 75% however strength wise I’m probably 25% still. Saw the surgeon a week or two ago and my weight restriction is 10-15lbs for things away from the body. The focus of PT is shifting to muscle building now instead of mobility. So I expect to have all restrictions lifted when I see the surgeon again in October.
As for the plantar Faciitis I was at a friends house a couple weeks ago with my shoes off(ortho inserts) for the first time in a month. I was just standing there washing out a growler at the sink when I started to feel pressure on the bottom of my foot then a lot of pain. After a few seconds I had a good sized hard bump in the middle of the arch of my foot. At first I thought I might have torn something but I had a visit with the Ortho a couple days out anyways and I could walk on it so I just waited to go in. His guess is I either blew up a blood vessel from being in my shoes with inserts for a month making my feet soft or I ruptured the planter muscle fascia. Since I can walk fine and I feel about like I did before this happened he had me wait it out and see if it got any better. It turned purple for a week then went away so I’m guessing it was a blood vessel. With my shoulder finally starting to get in shape this is my biggest sticking point at the moment. Anyone out there dealt with this successfully have any tips?
Steps so far:
Orthopedic shoe inserts
sleeping boots
taking prescribed NSAID
icing when I ice my shoulder at home and remember.
clean diet to drop a couple lbs that might have contributed to me getting this in the first place.
I had a SLAP II repair, 2 anchors at the labrum 12 and 3 oclock locations. Recovery was challenging. It took me about a year before I could say that I was recovered from the procedure. I am recovered now and thrilled at the results. Your PT will be your guide thru this recovery process.
I am currently sitting in my recliner with a cryo cuff on as my nerve block has worn off. I went in yesterday morning for a posterior kabral tear 9-11 o’clock. I figured one anchor, but the doc said my shoulder was worse than the what the MRI had shown. I have three anchors and he performormed microfracture surgery too.
I have my followup on Wednesday. I know 8 guys that have had labral surgery and all said it takes at least 8 months to get back into the gym. They also said to follow your doc and PT’s instructions to the letter. One of the 8 ripped two anchors out because he felt good and pushed himself working out on his own. I wish you the best of luck and will post about my recovery as well.
I’ve found the recovery from this has been painfully slow when progressing from being in a sling for a month to actually getting to use it. However I can say that the significant improvements came when I got the sling off and didn’t have it stuck in one position anymore. The other big change seemed to happen around 8-9 weeks which is apparently when the anchors are about fully healed.
That’s when my shoulder started to feel normal again and also around the time when the sutures under the skin finally started to dissolve. I’d been working on the scar tissue a couple weeks after surgery and by now it’s going to be up to the ART Doc to finish off but the big lumps of scar tissue are gone from the incision sites.
I wish you both the best of luck and a fast recovery. It appears that about a year is the time it takes to fully recover from this even for someone athletic. Actually what the surgeon told me was athletic people have it fixed and couch potato’s don’t as it doesn’t interfere with holding a remote/video game controller. Ironically I see lots of couch potato’s in PT but no couch potato’s that had shoulder surgery are ever there so perhaps the surgeon’s right.
If you do have any questions about my experience or anything don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
Just a quick update on my recovery progress. I had my 4 month review with the surgeon about 3 weeks ago and he was very happy with my strength and ROM. The pain I was dealing with had been mostly gone at that point unless I put my shoulder in a stretch that pushed on the anchors(External ROM especially overhead) and I was cleared for all normal activity and had my weight restrictions removed. I was however warned that I had to be very careful holding anything away from my body and to take is very slowly.
Unfortunately it wasn’t a week later that I had done ‘something’ to it. I had brewed a 10 gal batch of beer with some friends. It hadn’t even thought about carrying things around but I must have carried something heavier than my shoulder liked so I woke up the next day in a lot of pain again.
It took about three weeks to go away with taking NSAID’s and cutting out almost all my PT exercises per Dr.'s orders. I hadn’t realized it but my shoulders really needed a break and felt better when I went to PT last week than they have in a couple months. I believe my ROM is back to where it was before brewing beer however it’s still pretty limited compared to pre-surgery.
I’ll be starting to lift again in the next week or so as long as PT continues to be good. I hadn’t realized how weak the rest of my body has gotten since my surgery until I was moving some old jukebox wall boxes around this weekend. I’m still much thinner than when I started but I’m probably the weakest I have been in my adult life. With some luck and a lot of perseverance by next spring I’ll be back in shape again.