Light bar bell weights - For shoulder surgery patients you should be staying under 5 lbs during aerobics to avoid injury.
Last time I updated you on my shoulder surgery (recovery from right shoulder Open Bankart Surgery), I told you my insurance company cut off my physical therapy visits citing near complete relief of symptoms. I checked with my surgeon and he told me to wait until my visit today when we could evaluate the situation. He ran me through a range of motion test (upward reach, behind back reach, outward reach, and outward rotation). He agreed my outward motion was about only 90% recovered, but because there was no pain in full assisted extension he let me know that is okay. He thus told me that my shoulder was both stabilized and 100% healed from surgery.
My surgeon told I can come back if I have any other issues, but otherwise no follow up visit is needed. He also noted since my left arm had gone without dislocation for over two months it too was healed. He did check my left arm’s range motion and let me know surgery would not help in that situation as there was no actual loss of stability or permanent tear in the tissue.
Instead he recommended I join a gym or start doing light aerobics with light weight lifting on both arms. He noted that using the same exercises at PT on both shoulders would long term strengthen and stabilize the joint. Motions should be inward in nature and kept under five pounds during work outs. He advised against heavy weight training and any exercises that would increase elasticity in the muscle. He said my condition was genetic in nature and quite common as far as joint structure defects go. Other than that, I am officially recovered. I’m about ten weeks ahead of schedule and more fully healed than was expected. Both items are good news and it looks like in the long term I made the right decision– though I won’t lie that first month was horrible.
This ends my log of shoulder surgery recovery. I know many of you have been checking in and reading. I hope for those of you going through shoulder surgery this helped you understand what to both expect and what you have to look forward to. Many Open Bankart surgery patients need up to six months to fully heal (that’s 27 weeks) and in my case I had a quick recovery. If you’re not healing as quickly as I did do not get discouraged. You will see the same results, but I will tell you my secret was never giving up on PT and always working through intense pain. This is the only way you will ever recover.
Visited my orthopedist today. Looks like 10/14/09 will be the day of my surgery. I have a rip in the area marked to the right as the articular capsule (#2), which creates instability in the head of my humerus (the bone that makes the top portion of your arm) and allows it to pass out of the shoulder socket. We discussed therapy, but honestly with this being an ongoing issue for some four plus years my orthopedist doubts there will be any success with that sort of treatment. If it was going to heal– it would have healed already.