Was told late in high school that I had damaged my right rotator cuff and would need to have surgery before I hit 30. Well I turned 31 last December and all be danged if I haven't been in and out of the Doctors office nonstop ever since with some srious pains. They are talking sugery that could put me down for 12 to 18 month. Complete replacement is a serious possibility. I'm terified of what that will be like I've been laid up before but 8 months of physical thrapy, man I'm not sure I can handle it. Not to mention I really want to put it off as the chances of needing another replacement is almost triple whe. You're below age 45.

Steve

I am facing the same thing, I get the shots every 6 months and that calms things down. I know a guy that got regular cuff surgery and got clinically depressed from it.

Have you tried physiotherapy? I injured my rotator when my quarter horse paint went rodeo on me, then I aggravated it worse wiping out on a dirt bike with my kid in front of me on the bike. Parental instinct kicked in and I tucked under my little guy to protect him on the slide as the bike went over. Doctor sent me to a sports injury physiotherapist. the exercise made a world of difference for me.

I had a torn bicep tendon and torn rotator cuff. They had to reatach the bicep tendon to the bone of my right fore arm then put it in a cast keeping my arm in a 90 degree positon for 30 days givening the bicep tendon time to parcelly heal. That was done on 10/30/12. Then on 11/30/12 they took the cast off so that they could straighten my arm out to repain the torn rotator cuff. They had to remove two bone spurrs, grind the ball of the bone down to remove some arthritist, clip one of my upper bicep tendons and tied a know in the tendon so that it could stay permentaly wedge in a crevice of the bone. The bone spurs had be wearing on that tendon causing it to almost fray completely into. The surgeon said it would probalby went ahead and broke into at some point and to he thought that i might still be in pain after the surgery if he did not clip it into like he done. I had to start physical therapy 3 days after the second surgery on about 01/03/13 two times a week about 45 minutes a visit. for a total of 20 visits. I returned to work full duty 03/08/13. My doctor said it would take 9 months to a year before i will be totatly healed. My rotator cuff had been torn for over 5 years. My doctor whom i have been using for the last 30 years kept telling me i just had tendonitists. He had misdianosed it and i just assumed he knew what he was talking about. I lived with the pain of the torn rotator cuff for over 5 years. It is a long story as to how i finally got a MRI done to find out what was going on. I would not ever trust just one doctors dianosics ever again no matter how good of a doctor they are suppose to be. But torn rotator cuffs are not that big of a deal, but is a pretty painfull sugery and recovery. Also I was 52 years old when i had the surgerys done. A good friend of mine who is a radiolgist told me that any kind of surgery that they have to put you under sedation is more risky for someone my age. He was very right. The first surgery went by without a glitch. The second one had me really worried. After being brought out of sedation. I was sick dry heaving for several hours before i got to go home and it took several days before i felt like moving arround. They give you a shot in the neck to parilize your sholder/arm before doing rotator cuff surgery which in turn parilizes your lungs to an extent and for the first 20 something hours makes it really hard to breath. It was really hard after the second surgery took place for me to breath even after the 20 something hours had passed. Hope this helps give you some idea what rotator cuff surgery is like and good luck with what ever you decide to do.

See a physical therapist.

I couldn't lift my arm a few months ago and they fixed me up.

Worth a try. You should see improvements within a week or so.

http://www.trapperman.com/forum/ubbthrea...it_#Post3712175

I've had arthroscopy on my shoulder twice- once at the age of 16 from a hockey injury, and again at 21 early in my military career. Ligaments are under tension and can't pull themselves back together to heal, it's a hard pill to swallow- but surgery is sometimes the only way.

As for the recovery, it'll be quite a while before you can lift your arm over your head again. It heals down at your side in the sling, and you'll be starting from there building up all of your range of motion again. I was back to doing push ups within about 2 months and pull ups within about 4, back to full strength like nothing happened within 6-8 months.

Good luck.

Injured my rotator and deltoid 11 yrs ago while working (LEO) 2 surgeries and 212 PT sessions I've lost 80% use of my right shoulder and also happen to be right handed. Complete tear off of both from the bone and now have 9 pins / screws holding everything together. Now having issues with left shoulder because of loss of use of the right. Forced into retirement but life gos on.
Good Luck.

Been a while since I've been over this way to see what's going on and I figured it was about time for an update.

I've been to 3 doctors now and all told me it was possible to get me back to a very manageable level with some intense physical therapy. I'm happy to report that after 3 months of serious work I'm no longer in pain (not constant pain), my strength in my right arm and shoulder had tripled, and I'm actually able to go out and play catch with my 2 sons who just love baseball. I've never worked so hard for anything in my entire life and it has paid huge dividends. I will still need to face the knife eventually and although I know that day will come I feel better for what I'm doing now. I still have another 3 solid months of this once a week but I'm ready, willing, and finally able. Thanks for the support and suggestions y'all.

Steve