Anyone here had shoulder surgery? Possible torn labrum...

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As the title states. I met with an orthopedist yesterday to finally get my shoulder pain diagnosed, and his opinion is I have a partially torn labrum in my left shoulder. I have an MRI scheduled for next week, depending on the damage I'm hopeful I can skip surgery but given the symptoms my doctor is fairly confident that I'll need some type of work done.

Just wondering if any of you had any stories you could share. I have no qualms about having surgery, I just don't want to be blindsided by the after-effects.
 
I had my right shoulder repaired for that. Took a fall and tore the labrum.. Couldn't raise my arm above shoulder level. Got a good result. Complete ROM, no pain. Post-op PT is key. Don't skimp on that. Average time to healing probably several weeks to several months. You must take care not to reinjure it. I don't use my right arm to start the mower with the pull cord. Don't need to go through this ever again.
Post-op pain level is moderate. Wear the sling and pay close attention to the medical instructions you will get.

Good luck.
 
I had torn rotator cuff surgery in 2020 and agree with everything that Passport1 said. The docs have the procedure down to a T, and adherence to PT is key. I still do the cable PT to this day to maintain flexibility. Sleeping is tough as you can’t get comfortable with the sling. My surgeon advised me to never throw a football, baseball or frisbee again. You’ll be fine - Good luck with the repair.
 
While not the same, I damaged my shoulder splitting firewood with a maul. MRI and Xray showed a damaged socket and torn rotator cuff muscle. Although I am not a chiropractic believer, I was persuaded to go to a good one. He used the TENS machine to reduce pain, then rubbed hard as (insert bad word here) with thumbs. It was excruciating. I followed up with a few visits and did the simple exercises. It healed and has been trouble free ever since.
 
Once the surgery is done, dont wait to feel pain before you start taking the prescription pain medicine. Nurse warned me, I didnt listen and waited until I started to feel pain, once it starts it is like trying to stop a freight train. She was right. I cried *LOL*
 
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Yes. - right shoulder but I’m a true lefty at everything except music where I play guitar and violin as a righty would. I knew something was wrong with my right shoulder for many years but put off seeing a doctor. I knew surgery would affect my music playing for at least a year and might have made returning to violin (bow hand) playing impossible - so I was told by others. If I rested my right arm above my head while lying down or reclined for over 5 minutes I could not bring my arm back down over my head to my waist. I had to reach up with my left hand and slowly bring my right arm over my head while wincing in pain. I was mostly ok if I kept my right elbow no higher then my shoulder.

I waited way too long and one day while watering a overhead houseplant my right shoulder clicked and locked up. An emergency visit diagnosed frozen shoulder which was temporarily remedied with a cortisone shot and manipulation by the orthopedic doctor.

Surgery was required and the surgeon said I had put off the surgery for so long that my body had compensated by forming a paste of calcium in the rotator ball. He said he had never seen anything like it and took pictures since I was in a teaching hospital and he was the head orthopedic there. He removed about a toothpaste tubes load of this calcium and then had to snug up all the shoulder tendons since they had loosed up to accommodate the calcium goo my body made to lubricant the joint.

Made my repair much more complicated then a normal rotator cuff repair. Anyway, by putting it of I made it worse and it took well over a year before I could resume violin. So don’t be stubborn like I was - see a doctor and follow the advice. And do the PT as mentioned above. It will hurt but it is necessary.

And be aware that those magic pain pills you will get a R/x for are highly addictive so don’t get used to them or your life will go off the rails in a different direction that can’t be remedied by surgery. Switch over to OTC pain meds as soon as you can.
 
Tor rotator cuff with a bicep tendon torn in too and tendon wore a groove in the cuff. Shoulder surgery wasn't to bad with drugs but rehab was rough. Tens unit helped alot.
 
I reached out to Dr. Kevin Kruse last year when I had serious issues with my left shoulder. The diagnosis was a partial labrum tear, and after consulting several specialists, Dr. Kruse was the only one who clearly explained my options and what the surgery would involve. He gave me all the details about the procedure, what to expect during recovery, and how long the rehabilitation would take.

The surgery went smoothly without complications, and I felt like I was in good hands. His team was very attentive and professional. After the procedure, I followed the recovery program they recommended, which included specific exercises and physical therapy sessions. It was tough at first, but after a few months, I started to notice a significant improvement in mobility and pain.
 
My FIL just had shoulder replacement surgery in Toronto about a month ago. So far, he's doing exceedingly well. He's a fit 75 year old.
 
As the title states. I met with an orthopedist yesterday to finally get my shoulder pain diagnosed, and his opinion is I have a partially torn labrum in my left shoulder. I have an MRI scheduled for next week, depending on the damage I'm hopeful I can skip surgery but given the symptoms my doctor is fairly confident that I'll need some type of work done.

Just wondering if any of you had any stories you could share. I have no qualms about having surgery, I just don't want to be blindsided by the after-effects.
What were your symptoms?
 
Best way I found to describe it to people was it felt like having a hot ice pick being jabbed into my shoulder pretty much all the time.

It got to the point that I had to walk around with my left hand tucked in my waist band just to relieve the load of my arm off my shoulder.
 
I tore the labrum in my right shoulder pretty bad back in 07. Dang near ripped half of it out of the socket. Luckily worker's comp paid for it being that it happened while on the job. I was off work for almost 10 months because of it. Sad thing is, I should've only been out of work for about 7-8 months but because the worker's comp physician's advisor I guess was trying way too hard to save money, it ending up being ten months I was off because when my main doctor who handled the case wanted me to get an MRI with contrast right at the beginning, I guess adding the contrast cost too much because the MRI without it didn't show the whole picture so they decided to put me through about a month's worth of painful PT that probably added more damage to the injury that already needed surgery to fix it because when they did the MRI with contrast after the wasted PT, they knew right away surgery was the only solution.

Anywho, I was working as a well-driller deck hand for a guy who drills water wells for commercial properties and home-owners that live out in the country for drinking water and one day when we were tripping out of a hole that we didn't strike water on and because the operator the boss hired long before me to run is other drilling rig was kind of a prick, it didn't take long for me and him to not get along so well so I don't recall what it was he did that day to put me in a bad mood but anyways, since we were running the boss's rig at the time that was much fancier than the one we always ran, this rig carried about 400 feet of drill stem horizontally on the side of it and it had a revolver system in the derrick that stowed the preliminary 100 feet of drill stem.

Anyways, being that the side rack had to be filled first when you're tripping out of a hole, when the operator pulls the top stem up and locks onto the top collar of the one below it to hold it, the deck hand uses a pipe wrench to screw that piece of drill stem out of the one below it and when he picks it up and gets it high enough, its up to the deck hand to then swing the bottom of the stem onto the rack so that when he lowers the cable, the stem slides forward to stack it so then the deck hand twists the threaded piece thats attached to the winch out of that one and then the operator lowers the cable down to do the next one and then so on and so forth until all of it is out of the hole.

Well, being that he had me in a bad mood over something...this was a daily thing almost, my injury occurred when I shoved a little bit too hard on a piece of heavy drill stem as I was pushing it onto the storage rack so he could lower it to stow it and when you do this, your arm is extended not exactly all the way arm's length away from your body but not close either and your hand is about chest high so if you push too hard like I unintentionally did, it puts a lot of leverage on your shoulder and I felt a slight pop. Thought I had just pulled a muscle so being that it happened on a Friday, by Sunday my shoulder was hurting pretty bad so I made the call to my boss and told him what had happened and he said to head to the doctor. The rest is history. Lost about 5 percent of my range of motion when it was finally over and I could go back to work. Not for him, though. I was done with that...lol.

Surgery went well. They didn't have to slice my arm open like they did in the old days because they did the repair with a camera so I only have about 4 small scars on my shoulder where they went in.
 
My wife had an MRI on her shoulder yesterday . Partial tear in the rotator cuff . Ortho Doctor injected it and said to let her PT know . The same one that's already working on her knee . Check back in 4 weeks and see if it's healing on it's own .
 
My wife had an MRI on her shoulder yesterday . Partial tear in the rotator cuff . Ortho Doctor injected it and said to let her PT know . The same one that's already working on her knee . Check back in 4 weeks and see if it's healing on it's own .

I had lots of people tell me to go to PT first, but I knew in my heart that the damage was done even before my MRI.

In fact, going just off the MRI they thought my tear was small. Turns out all 3 tears (doc's found more once they got inside) were much more significant than the MRI showed. I asked my surgeons afterwards if PT would have helped, their response was "Maybe 5-6 years ago, but the way you were? Not a chance".
 
I had lots of people tell me to go to PT first, but I knew in my heart that the damage was done even before my MRI.

In fact, going just off the MRI they thought my tear was small. Turns out all 3 tears (doc's found more once they got inside) were much more significant than the MRI showed. I asked my surgeons afterwards if PT would have helped, their response was "Maybe 5-6 years ago, but the way you were? Not a chance".
Oh, so you had the surgery done. Hope you heal fast! Do you need PT post surgery?
 
Oh, so you had the surgery done. Hope you heal fast! Do you need PT post surgery?

I did! Back in October of '24. Here's a link to the update post:

Shoulder update

I took 6 weeks off following surgery, then did 3 months of 2x a week PT. I've been back to work since March 1st of this year and feeling great. I get a little stiffness here an there after a long week, but otherwise the surgery was a complete success.
 
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