It was assumed by my PCP and by orthopedics that I had partially torn my rotator cuff in my right shoulder last August. The pain was bad initially, but faded after a few weeks after the incident. I did some PT and things seemed good.
A few months ago the pain resumed and I began to experience sleepless nights because of it. Orthopedics gave me a cortisone shot which eliminated the pain, but only for two weeks. After that, they ordered an MRI which revealed a full thickness tear of my supraspinatus tendon, a focal full thickness tear of my infraspinstus tendon, and a partial thickness tear of my subscapularis tendon. I’m scheduled for surgery on May 16th.
I have not had my pre-op visit with my surgeon yet. So, for those who’ve been through similar surgeries and subsequent recoveries, I have a few questions:
I’m in grad school. Will I be able to type after surgery? I can use speech-to-text software if I have to, but orating 20 page papers sounds brutal.
How many months until I can do even a single pushup?
How bad is the muscle atrophy going to be? Am I looking at skin and bones after 6 weeks in a sling and months more of PT?
Will continuing to work my left side result in muscle imbalances and potential future injuries?
I can’t speak too much on rotator cuff repair. However, I had a SLAP repair. Shoulder surgeries suck! recovery is long, mine is still ongoing 3 months out from surgery. No way I’m thinking about pushups right now. Request a circulating ice machine! They are awesome and decreased the amount of pain medication I needed. My 6 weeks in a sling resulted in some pretty good muscle loss for sure.
You’ll likely be in a sling for 6 weeks, so probably no typing with both hands
Protocols are generally 6 weeks no active movement whatsoever, then 4-6 weeks of progressive strengthening. So likely 10-12 weeks before you’re cleared for push-ups
You’ll be skinnier for sure, but not skin and bones. Especially from weeks 6-12, you should start to see reasonable muscle regrowth, especially if you employ suitable nutrition and rehabilitation
You will develop an imbalance, but limb-limb asymmetries generally don’t cause future injury (that’s just some bullshit people say to make you scared). In fact, strengthening the good side will help reduce strength and muscle loss in the surgical arm.
Physios refer to limb-limb asymmetries post-injury as a way to define what is “normal” for the person. Saying the asymmetry itself is what caused the injury is a post-hoc fallacy and lazy clinical reasoning
You’ll loose some for sure. I don’t know about inches, I’m really lean to begin with so any I noticed. Also, I’m sure that I’m hypersensitive to it.
j4gga has some really good points to help ya out. I’m not sure my recovery is the “norm” I’m pretty high millage LOL.
Any advice on adjusting caloric intake during recovery? I don’t want to put on excess fat if at all possible. At the same time, I don’t want to be in a caloric deficit as that will negatively impact healing.
I was thinking I’d remain at maintenance, but my maintenance calories will likely decrease dramatically due to barely being able to use my upper body.
I usually recommend athletes remain at maintenance calories, or even slight surplus. This is because:
1 - The drop in energy expenditure from reducing your upper body strength training is minimal
2 - Most athletes end up doing more lower body volume to make up for the drop in upper body training, which will generally increase your energy expenditure
3 - The last thing you want to do is deprive your body of recovery resources post-surgery
I have had two surgeries on my dominant arm/shoulder that prevented me from training it for weeks/months at a time. Both times I ignored advice not to train my nonsurgical arm while I was recovering from surgery. I did not develop any imbalances and I very much believe that I kept more mass and strength in my surgical arm by training my nonsurgical arm than I would have if I hadn’t done anything. When I was cleared to train my surgical arm, I switched back to bilateral exercises and slowly ramped the weight up over several weeks.
I too was not able to type right after my surgery. I don’t know what speech to text software you are considering using, but I found Dragon Speak to be excellent.
What was their reasoning for not working the non-injured arm? Are they worried you’ll tense the recovering shoulder? I don’t see how using a cable machine with controlled, strict form would pose a risk.
It was that I’d develop imbalances. Since it wasn’t based on a worry I mess up my surgical arm, I was comfortable ignoring the advice. I followed everything else to a T though.
To be fair to my surgeon, who was excellent and who is the team doctor for an NFL team, the advice not to train the nonsurgical side came from one of the folks on his team, not him. I was confident in my decision to go ahead and train the nonsurgical side so I never followed up with the doctor directly on this particular issue.
Well, it’s been just over two weeks since shoulder surgery. I was in the worst pain of my life for the first four days, but I was able to come off of all pain medications by day six.
I was able to start typing after a week, but long sessions are tough and my arm aches afterward. I’ve been doing unilateral exercises and it’s going well. Mostly cables rows, cable flyes, pull downs, and lateral raises. PT is painful as we’re working on range of motion.
My largest concern is my right bicep. Its shape has changed (no peak) and it has atrophied while the shoulder and triceps have not. They performed no surgical intervention on the bicep, and I’m concerned they did something to nerves. I can’t feel it very well when I contract it. Truly hope they didn’t mess it up.