Shoulder Spurs

I have to have surgery on my shoulder for a bone spur.

My question is how long does the recovery take?

Garryowen

How was your surgery and recovery? Did it fix you up?

Dave

I was scheduled to have surgery on Jan. 6th. It was confirmed by x-ray and MRI. However it stopped hurting so I cancelled it.
It had hurt for the previous four years. Last winter I was icing it everyday after work. Stopped the icing and stretching and it went away.
The recovery was supposed to take six weeks. But, the people at work tell me it's more like 3 months.

Garryowen

Are taking some good quality fish oil? Stop eating wheat- it makes a world of difference. Read pain free in 6 weeks. It's written by Shirley Rogers.

I took fish oil and Osteo Bi-Flex for my knees. Tore the cartilage in my left knee about two years ago. I quit taking them about a year ago. The knee is fine.

I just take aspirin for my shoulder when it hurts. That's all. I don't know why but it just stopped hurting.

Garryowen

I would reccomend having the surgery. I had the samething. I let it go for about 5 years just because the doctor kept telling me that it was arthritis. Then the summer before last i tore my bicep tendon loose from the bone on the same arm/sholder. They done an MRI and showed that i also had bone spurr and torn rotator cuff in sholder. When they got in there they had to clip one of the two tendons that holds the upper portion of the bicep tendon to the rotator cuff leaving me with just one tendon on top of the bicep and one on the bottom. Because of that it left me weak in that arm. The bone spurr acted like a dull knife during the 5 years rubbing on the tendon causing it to fray like a boot string.

What causes such a bone spur?

I was told by my orthopedic that my shoulder spurs were caused by continuous repetition of a defined work, sport, etc. They are growths on the end of bones at their joints. When the joints are used it causes pain and irritation. A lot of people have them, but experience no pain or irritation. It’s a form of arthritis. Mine were caused by constantly chopping,splitting, stacking firewood and weightlifting. I have been a wood burner since I was 10. I am now 60 and have felt the pain from spurs. Believe me, it is not pleasant. I bought a log splitter last year to avoid surgery. I hate being dependent on it to do the work I love doing, but I am not in pain anymore and have been able to put off surgery for now.

I think weightlifting, if not done correctly, can sometimes do more harm than good.

Those spurs can wear away at your tendons and you will need rotator surgery. You may need it now. Get yourself some freezer gel packs and a recliner to sleep in. You will be down for several weeks if you have rotator surgery. I have had four, two on each side over 20 years.

Bone spurs are when two bone surfaces come into contact with each other causing micro fractures and than osteoblast lay a new layer of bone over to heal the crack do this a 1000 times than bone spurs start to form.These are usually along the of the edge of joints just off the edge of the cartilage. What causes this (the most common is in shoulders) is a rounded upper back weak back and weak rotator cuff muscles their is 4 of them.

AS of March 26, 2021 I haven't had any surgery. Shoulder seems just fine.

Garryowen

I will be 72 on the 12th and have had both shoulders fixed. Torn rotator cuff and bone spurs in both. My orthopedic surgeon (Dr Knife) gave me the Cortisone shots for years and finally said I needed to get fixed. He did the repairs on each (several years apart), cleaned up the spurs and sent me to rehab. He said I should be good for 8 10 years if I took care of them and didn't abuse them. The 6 weeks of recovery is wishful thinking. You need much more time to rehab and time to heal and slowly work back to full motion and hopefully near full strength.

The motion that really hurt my shoulders is raising my arm up and reaching out. I was using a long pole saw last week to to do some tree trimming and now have shoulder pain. I sure hope I haven't screwed it up again. I am still catching hogs so it must not be too bad.

If you are having pain in your shoulder with motion, talk to an orthopedic guy and maybe the shots will work as a short term fix for you.

When the test was done when they put you in a tube the nurse stopped mid way in and called the doctor. When I talked to him about surgery he never said anything about spurs.

Garryowen