god i soo feel for both of you. that PT REALLY was the most crucial part for me or i KNOW i would not be able to have gotten ROMS back like i have right now. it has been many many months actally just becasue i have some other pretty severe medical issues going on too. my PT does myofascial release and another therpy called craniosacral therepy too. these two therepies really were key for me and still are just to maintain mobility. its kind of a long road back with this particular surgery since the rotator cuff area/joint is the biggest most mobile and pretty complex joint we have in our bodies. soo many tendons and other stuff in there that can become worn out or injured and boy do you feel it then. i still have some residual bone pain from mine kind of in that bicep area that is just kind of there? luckily mytherepist is really amazing and has helped mein ALOT of ways with the alot of my crap.
ya know,my rotator surgery was actually done 'awake"?since i had some spontaneously firing jaw pain going on from the nerve damage i have from spinalcord injury,the anesthesiologist did not want to even try and intubate me as he said he could casue things to become much worse if he accidently hit something in my mouth. so they did that full scalene block(it goes right from the side of the neck on that surgical side and down from there,dead wieght is what you feel once it kicks in) instead and loaded me up with fent and versed and it went great for me actually. that full scalene bock just is very solid blocking that you feel absolutely nothing when its done(i just dozed off and slept thru my surgery). you also feel sooo much better post op and not groggy or with that sore throat from that tube you normally have? i didn't have to spend any time in the post op recovery area either,just took me right up to my room. i had to stay in hosp for pain control just becasue i AM a mess.
the anesthesiologist can be your very best friend in the surgical post op dept too. like you mentioned THP,you can have continuous anesthesia directed right into that area with a little bit of tubing they would place in there while they do the surgery. it just keeps everything numb for a much longer period of time. one huge thing that really helped me tons and another woman here who just happened to be going thru this at the very same time is that continuous passive motion(CPM) chair? this is where you just strap your arm onto the handle thingy in front while you sit in this chair(they do deliver this thing to your home to use daily)and it moves your joint for you without using ANY tendon or muscle at all(you also do those wonderful pendulem excercises too). it helps tons in geting that joint moving as soon as possible,but very very slowly. you just spend a few half hour sessions per day in it during the like,first fifteen days or something? i cannot remeber for certain,you just have to meet a certain degree level,then you can call them to pick up that chair. that is right around when you would start the hands on PT with a good therepist from there. it helps alot tho and i would highly recommend this to anyone who is going to be having any level of rotator repair done. it just helps that much in getting things going again in that very important joint. just some helpful suggestions for you.
monkey, you may not actually have a frozen area per se inthe real sense of what an actual "frozen' joint actually is. you probably have a full tear in that supraspinatus tendon and that alone would keep you from just being able to lift up anything past a certain point. that is exactly where i was at before my surgery too. i didn't realize just how bad the wear and tear damage actually was in my rotator and that joint area til my MRI was done. an x ray by the way will not actually show anything BUT bone and not the tendon or muscle where the damage actually is located. you NEED that MRI done to see that. glad they have that ordered for you. that will give you solid info. what actually casued that last of my tendon to tear was very simple actually. i just went to lift up my purse from the top of my fridge one morning and in mid 'pull' it just stopped and i felt this horrid pain in my arm and along the clavicle area? really ugly there for a while. i went to my primary and could not run thru the ROMS like i should have so he sent me for that MRI. i had no clue it was that bad til that film showed it. so that "freezing up" thing could just possibly be the level of tendon damage alone too. when the tendons are torn,they don't adduct or abduct correctly anymore since there is not connection anymore,ya know what i mean? you will just have to wait and see what shows up inthat MRI. hopefully its notthat bad and be repaired without being too overly invasive. in some cases,they can do it all with just a totally arthoscopic approach and not a bigger incision like i have. but despite the post op crap,i am really really glad i did it. its just one thing you have to simply deal with and get thru to just have that shoulder feel better and become more useful again,ya know? my pain levels pre op were really bad some days compared to what i have now.
i wish you both luck and please keep me posted as to how things are going. and DO ask your surgeons about using that CPM chair,it REALLY makes a huge difference in alot of ways,even the pain. FB
