Hello everyone, a friend on Twitter just put me on to this site. Sure wish I looked for it a month ago. I went in for what they assumed was a fairly routine repair. But once he got inside, a bone spur had sawn through my bicep to the point where they had to just chop about an inch and a half of it off. That was in addition to fixing a very big tear in the “whatever you call it tendon “ across the shoulder blade. 3 hours and 9 cadaver screws later, and they said I was going to be as good as new. Or would be after 6 to 9 months of physical therapy, anyway.
So here I am, in a recliner talking to you and about to recount what an absolutely miserable experience I've had, with the hope that my experience can give the next person a clue that I never got, which might prepare them for what's coming. This has been so bad, and so painful, I have actually fantasized about going back and skipping the surgery altogether and opting to just live with what sure felt like pretty terrible pain at the time. I'm no stranger to pain, and I have a pretty high threshold for the stuff. I've suffered from cluster headache, ruptured discs, broken kneecaps, and strep D pelvic infections, all of which are pretty well-known in the pantheon of serious pain experiences. But they were not persistent over time, as this recovery has been. And that persistence made this truly a thing from hell
My first week was horrific. After the nerve block wore off, pain was so intense I was in tears most of the time. Sleeping was virtually impossible. I had not been prepped with all the tricks that the doctor should have told me about. Even pointing to this site would have been helpful. And many of the tricks themselves aren't even all that effective. They're just better than nothing and worth trying in the absence of anything else. Take for example the recliner advice. Recliners are not really designed for sleeping, and while they may put less straight stress on the shoulder for a time, it is at the expense of the butt and rest of the body that get starved for blood flow over many hours in one position. I had two different recliners and a reclining office chair in service at any one time, and sometimes I had to use all three to get a couple hours of sleep. And that was after double doses of oxycodone, 500 mg of Tylenol, and 10 mg of Ambien sleep med.
I may not be typical of course, but I just found it so difficult to get the shoulder in a position where it was not painful enough to keep me up enough to keep me awake, that I literally spent weeks tinkering with the solutions in the middle of the night trying to find something that would work at least well enough to let me get a decent night's sleep once or twice a week. The best solution so far was the simplest. Put a piece of plywood against your headboard set at a 60° angle, and stack two rows of regular bed pillows on it. Not 45 degrees. 60. If the angle is too slight, the shoulder sinks in such a way that three or four different muscles are affected and it can be straight up agony. At sixty, they seem to all the line in the same direction and if you support the elbow with a small pillow, and you can find a stasis that's relatively comfortable. It's not easy. You also need a pillow under your knees to prevent you from sliding down while you sleep. Get all of this together in advance before your surgery. Because you will hate yourself if you don't. Doing the simplest things without one of your shoulders, even without the pain issue, is just incredibly difficult. With the pain issue, it's coping with daily tasks is exasperating and exhausting I'm saying this as an inventor and problem solver, who has a lot of tricks most people don't have for figuring out how to do stuff in novel ways. Without my skills at seeking solutions, I would have been on the edge of despair most of the time. Hell, I mostly am now.
Forget about doing this alone. I was a caregiver for my 94 year old mother. So I basically was alone. She tries, but there isn't a lot she can do to help me. But in a pinch, I'm sure glad she's there it even it's just to spread some cream cheese on a bagel. If your surgery is going to be on your dominant arm, start practicing now. After 3 weeks I finally learned how to shave with my left hand. I've actually gotten kind of good at it. But that's about all I'm good at. Writing is almost out of the question, using a mouse left handed that is miserable, and without voice dictation software, I wouldn't even be typing this to you now. Even with it, it's a lot of work
But you can learn to cope with all the inconveniences over time. The biggest issue for me is the continuing pain. Extreme levels of it. I'm now a 3.5 weeks in, and both my doctor and my physical therapist tell me that I should be outside of that extreme pain envelope by now. But I'm not. Just dictating my words to you right now radiates to my shoulder and it's quite painful. When I go in for PT three times a week, they can hear me screaming five floors up. And it's getting worse, not better. It's just the most excruciating agony as they try to increase my range of motion, which now seems to be decreasing. When I try to do PT at home oh, my nights are the worst ever, even limiting myself to just a few gentle stretches. They insist nothing is wrong, that it's just a bump in the road, yada yada, but I'm starting to wonder. If you've had this level of pain after three and a half weeks, I'd love to hear from you, just because it will give me hope that this situation isn't that unusual and I just have to wait it out.
One piece of advice you must heed. It takes a lot of research to discover this. The pain med of choice for this is oxycodone; an opioid. Trust me on this, ordinary laxatives are useless against opioid-based constipation. Don't even bother with them. All the old rules about fiber, water, blah blah blah or meaningless. Oxy rewires the lining of your colon. The only laxative that helps, and it helps a lot is a sennosides-based laxative. aka, senna-kot. Any of the over-the-counter generic versions are just as good. But this is the only type that works. Full stop. Again it took me a lot of Internet research to find that secret sauce. I wish someone would have shared the knowledge more widely. The surgical pain is one kind of unbearable, and mostly unpreventable. The constipation misery, however, can be prevented. So prevent it. Take this advice seriously. It will be a big issue.
In my next post I will try to be more helpful and less alarming. I just wanted to make it clear that you must prepare for what's coming. 6-8 weeks in a sling without one of your limbs (especially the dominant one) is a challenge you are not prepared for. There should be much better tutorials for this surgery and follow up, which the medical establishment should produce as open source content. Millions would benefit (there are over 550,000 rotator cuff repairs in the US alone each year).
Good luck to us all. Any pain management advice anyone wants to offer me, I feel I'll be in the market for it for at least another couple of weeks. Thanks to the operators of this site. I wish more doctors knew about it.
So here I am, in a recliner talking to you and about to recount what an absolutely miserable experience I've had, with the hope that my experience can give the next person a clue that I never got, which might prepare them for what's coming. This has been so bad, and so painful, I have actually fantasized about going back and skipping the surgery altogether and opting to just live with what sure felt like pretty terrible pain at the time. I'm no stranger to pain, and I have a pretty high threshold for the stuff. I've suffered from cluster headache, ruptured discs, broken kneecaps, and strep D pelvic infections, all of which are pretty well-known in the pantheon of serious pain experiences. But they were not persistent over time, as this recovery has been. And that persistence made this truly a thing from hell
My first week was horrific. After the nerve block wore off, pain was so intense I was in tears most of the time. Sleeping was virtually impossible. I had not been prepped with all the tricks that the doctor should have told me about. Even pointing to this site would have been helpful. And many of the tricks themselves aren't even all that effective. They're just better than nothing and worth trying in the absence of anything else. Take for example the recliner advice. Recliners are not really designed for sleeping, and while they may put less straight stress on the shoulder for a time, it is at the expense of the butt and rest of the body that get starved for blood flow over many hours in one position. I had two different recliners and a reclining office chair in service at any one time, and sometimes I had to use all three to get a couple hours of sleep. And that was after double doses of oxycodone, 500 mg of Tylenol, and 10 mg of Ambien sleep med.
I may not be typical of course, but I just found it so difficult to get the shoulder in a position where it was not painful enough to keep me up enough to keep me awake, that I literally spent weeks tinkering with the solutions in the middle of the night trying to find something that would work at least well enough to let me get a decent night's sleep once or twice a week. The best solution so far was the simplest. Put a piece of plywood against your headboard set at a 60° angle, and stack two rows of regular bed pillows on it. Not 45 degrees. 60. If the angle is too slight, the shoulder sinks in such a way that three or four different muscles are affected and it can be straight up agony. At sixty, they seem to all the line in the same direction and if you support the elbow with a small pillow, and you can find a stasis that's relatively comfortable. It's not easy. You also need a pillow under your knees to prevent you from sliding down while you sleep. Get all of this together in advance before your surgery. Because you will hate yourself if you don't. Doing the simplest things without one of your shoulders, even without the pain issue, is just incredibly difficult. With the pain issue, it's coping with daily tasks is exasperating and exhausting I'm saying this as an inventor and problem solver, who has a lot of tricks most people don't have for figuring out how to do stuff in novel ways. Without my skills at seeking solutions, I would have been on the edge of despair most of the time. Hell, I mostly am now.
Forget about doing this alone. I was a caregiver for my 94 year old mother. So I basically was alone. She tries, but there isn't a lot she can do to help me. But in a pinch, I'm sure glad she's there it even it's just to spread some cream cheese on a bagel. If your surgery is going to be on your dominant arm, start practicing now. After 3 weeks I finally learned how to shave with my left hand. I've actually gotten kind of good at it. But that's about all I'm good at. Writing is almost out of the question, using a mouse left handed that is miserable, and without voice dictation software, I wouldn't even be typing this to you now. Even with it, it's a lot of work
But you can learn to cope with all the inconveniences over time. The biggest issue for me is the continuing pain. Extreme levels of it. I'm now a 3.5 weeks in, and both my doctor and my physical therapist tell me that I should be outside of that extreme pain envelope by now. But I'm not. Just dictating my words to you right now radiates to my shoulder and it's quite painful. When I go in for PT three times a week, they can hear me screaming five floors up. And it's getting worse, not better. It's just the most excruciating agony as they try to increase my range of motion, which now seems to be decreasing. When I try to do PT at home oh, my nights are the worst ever, even limiting myself to just a few gentle stretches. They insist nothing is wrong, that it's just a bump in the road, yada yada, but I'm starting to wonder. If you've had this level of pain after three and a half weeks, I'd love to hear from you, just because it will give me hope that this situation isn't that unusual and I just have to wait it out.
One piece of advice you must heed. It takes a lot of research to discover this. The pain med of choice for this is oxycodone; an opioid. Trust me on this, ordinary laxatives are useless against opioid-based constipation. Don't even bother with them. All the old rules about fiber, water, blah blah blah or meaningless. Oxy rewires the lining of your colon. The only laxative that helps, and it helps a lot is a sennosides-based laxative. aka, senna-kot. Any of the over-the-counter generic versions are just as good. But this is the only type that works. Full stop. Again it took me a lot of Internet research to find that secret sauce. I wish someone would have shared the knowledge more widely. The surgical pain is one kind of unbearable, and mostly unpreventable. The constipation misery, however, can be prevented. So prevent it. Take this advice seriously. It will be a big issue.
In my next post I will try to be more helpful and less alarming. I just wanted to make it clear that you must prepare for what's coming. 6-8 weeks in a sling without one of your limbs (especially the dominant one) is a challenge you are not prepared for. There should be much better tutorials for this surgery and follow up, which the medical establishment should produce as open source content. Millions would benefit (there are over 550,000 rotator cuff repairs in the US alone each year).
Good luck to us all. Any pain management advice anyone wants to offer me, I feel I'll be in the market for it for at least another couple of weeks. Thanks to the operators of this site. I wish more doctors knew about it.