I am 75 and still working. Nov 2023, I tripped and fell on concrete and blew my right shoulder completely out of the socket. The pain was unbearable for hours as they kept pouring the morphine to me with no relief and finally knocked me out completely with Propofol and physically put the shoulder back in place. An MRI revealed much damage to the shoulder muscles, ligaments, tendons, etc. with a full thickness tear of something. It was so bad the head orthopedic shoulder surgeon said he could not do a repair job with so much damage with any hope of success or improvement. I was given two options. One was to start physical therapy slowly and let it heal and see how it goes. Option two was a complete shoulder replacement then or later.

I opted to wait and see how it healed and decide later. I am now over one year out, and the pain and loss of movement seems to be getting worse. I am a full-time feral wild hog trapper in Florida and do allot of heavy lifting and heavy-duty work, so I am sure I haven't helped the situation any and now am considering the full shoulder replacement. I am wondering if the soft tissue damage is so extensive, how will replacing the shoulder joint itself help the situation? I would hate to go thru the surgery and rehab and end up no better than I am right now or worse. Thoughts, experiences?

Thanks, Dave

After my own shoulder completely gave out (different cause, same end result: massive soft tissue damage), I waited it out at first too, thinking I could rehab my way through it. But the pain didn’t go away, and function just kept dropping. Like you, I do a lot of physical work, so “taking it easy” wasn’t exactly an option. Eventually, I hit a point where I couldn’t do basic overhead movements without sharp pain, and that was that, I started looking seriously at shoulder replacement.

I ended up having a reverse shoulder replacement done in Dallas, at Dr. Kevin Kruse’s clinic. What helped me decide was understanding how the procedure works even when soft tissue is trashed, reverse replacement relies more on the deltoid than the damaged rotator cuff, which is why it can still restore function when a traditional repair won’t cut it. The team there laid it out clearly, including the pros, cons, and what recovery really takes. It wasn’t an easy call, but in my case, it gave me back enough strength and range to keep doing what I need to do without constant pain.

After this much time since your surgical shoulder repair, how is your shoulder doing and are you happy with the outcome?

Thanks, Dave