Rotator Cuff Repair Anyone living with torn rotator cuff?

AJinNH

senior
Joined
Dec 18, 2017
Messages
458
Age
68
Country
United States United States
Gender
Female
Hi, I’ve been a member of BS for a while, I had a total R hip replacement 3 years ago and this group was invaluable to my pre and post surgical experiences.

I’m back today because I have a torn rotator cuff, it’s a full tear of my right distal supraspinatus tendon. I believe it was from repetitive motion (swimming) then aggravated with a minor injury about 18 months ago.

I had PT a year ago and saw improvement of my symptoms, then the pandemic hit. At that time I had only had x-rays, so didn’t know about the tear. Then this past September I had an MRI which showed the tear. I am currently having PT once again, mostly to build strength in my arm.

My question is whether people live with tears without having surgery? I have full range of motion in my arm and I don’t have any pain when sleeping at night thanks to the PT. Weakness is the biggest issue and also I will occasionally have my hand go numb at night unless I keep it propped up on a pillow, but the thinking is that that might not be from my shoulder but could be thoracic outlet syndrome of the pectoral muscle.

I’ve had two surgeons recommend that I have it repaired, but wonder if I should if I’m not in pain? I’d appreciate your thoughts.
 
I had too much pain to not have surgery but I think that was more from the bicep tendon being torn as well than the supraspinatus. Mine was a full thickness tear of over 75% of the supraspinatus.

Have the surgeons told you what issues you'd have if it's not repaired. If it's not completely severed, you might be risking it getting worse. The rule of thumb I was given was that they recommend repair if it's a full tear of more than 50%.

The other question I would ask is what the chances are for the repair to "take". If it's been deterioration over the years and then an injury 18 months ago, the chance of success might be lower.

If the risks aren't great, it seems like it's a lifestyle decision. Can you do the things you want to do and not be in pain? Mine was a sudden major tear and I'm not sure if that made a difference or not.
 
Thanks @SaraK I’ll ask those questions when I follow up with the surgeon. All I know currently is that it’s a full thickness tear, but the last surgeon described it as not being very big. They wanted to repair it in December, but I didn’t want to have surgery during a surge of the virus. The surgeon also said that due to it being there for a while there was some thickening of the edges of the tear, but that he felt that could actually be advantageous in that it may hold sutures better.

I had decided to postpone making a decision until after I was vaccinated, and now that I am I’m trying PT once again and it is helping. I know no one has a crystal ball, but I could live with it as it is now as long as it doesn’t get worse.
 

BoneSmart #1 Best Blog

Staff online

  • Jaycey
    ADMINISTRATOR Staff member since February 2011

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
65,167
Messages
1,596,863
BoneSmarties
39,356
Latest member
JanieMarie
Recent bookmarks
0
Back
Top Bottom