Shoulder
I've been talking a fair bit about this on FB, but not everyone FBs, I know.
I injured my left shoulder back in February at judo practice. Or I gradually wore it out and just noticed after a particular fall in judo. Anyway, it wasn't right. After a combination of rest, ice, ibuprofen, PT, and injected cortisone didn't get me back to normal, my orthopedist and I decided on arthroscopic surgery. Yesterday was the day. This was routine (well, routine for *them*) outpatient surgery, I'm not part of today's ER craze.
I went through a bunch of different (though related) diagnoses leading up to the surgery -- impingement, torn labrum, torn rotator cuff. When he actually went in with the arthroscope, he found a little bit of frayed labrum which he removed, inflammation of the rotator cuff and bursa (typical of impingement), no rotator cuff tear. He removed some inflamed bursa, and shaved down a bit of the acromion (bone that comes forward over the point of the shoulder; "impingement" is when the rotator cuff and bursa are squeezed an irritated between the acromion and the head of the humerus).
They did a nerve block berfore surgery, so my entire arm is still totally numb and should get feeling back sometime today. Becase there was no need for sutures, I won't need to immobilize it after feeling returns -- I've been told it'll be painful but beneficial to start moving through the full range of motion right away. Formal physical therapy starts in two weeks. I have oxycodone for when feeling returns to my arm; I followed advice to take one before bed tonight in case it started hurting in the night, but unfortunately turns out I can't much sleep with the combination of weird numb arm and disconnected random opiate thought-dreams. Overall recovery is supposed to take somewhere around 4 months.
I injured my left shoulder back in February at judo practice. Or I gradually wore it out and just noticed after a particular fall in judo. Anyway, it wasn't right. After a combination of rest, ice, ibuprofen, PT, and injected cortisone didn't get me back to normal, my orthopedist and I decided on arthroscopic surgery. Yesterday was the day. This was routine (well, routine for *them*) outpatient surgery, I'm not part of today's ER craze.
I went through a bunch of different (though related) diagnoses leading up to the surgery -- impingement, torn labrum, torn rotator cuff. When he actually went in with the arthroscope, he found a little bit of frayed labrum which he removed, inflammation of the rotator cuff and bursa (typical of impingement), no rotator cuff tear. He removed some inflamed bursa, and shaved down a bit of the acromion (bone that comes forward over the point of the shoulder; "impingement" is when the rotator cuff and bursa are squeezed an irritated between the acromion and the head of the humerus).
They did a nerve block berfore surgery, so my entire arm is still totally numb and should get feeling back sometime today. Becase there was no need for sutures, I won't need to immobilize it after feeling returns -- I've been told it'll be painful but beneficial to start moving through the full range of motion right away. Formal physical therapy starts in two weeks. I have oxycodone for when feeling returns to my arm; I followed advice to take one before bed tonight in case it started hurting in the night, but unfortunately turns out I can't much sleep with the combination of weird numb arm and disconnected random opiate thought-dreams. Overall recovery is supposed to take somewhere around 4 months.