My 16 year old son had surgery for a SLAP tear this past Jan. He is a left handed pitcher. We firmly believe that it occured as a result of overuse and poor mechanics.

It seems that there are many factors that affect recovery time ie age, physical condition, and of course the severity of the injury.

My son has been throwing every other day and has been taking it very slowly. He has some bicep tendonitis but he has not experienced any pain from the injury sight. He does experience or feel the adhesions (scar tissue) breaking free sometimes when he throws. He feels that he can begin playing first base in a couple of weeks when fall baseball begins. Here in the south it is possible for a young person to play baseball 10 to 11 months out of the year. Probably explains the number of arm injuries among players his age. He is going to refrain from pitching this fall but I know that he will get pressure to pitch anyway.

Is this a typical recovery period/picture for a young man in good physical condition?

Hey everyone,

I signed on to this board back in feb (approx) this year but I guess I was too under the influence to remember p/w or anything. Been a long road, and reading the info here since my surgery 2-12-08 has helped imeasurably. I have been reading with most interest this poll being taken on post op 6months +. But I feel one important factor is missing, the age of the person responding. Generally wouldn't you expect that a 17 year-old male soccer player would recover faster than a 67 year-old woman who had spent most of their time in a rocking chair?

I don't have the tech info for my surgery, but I had a torn/detached bicep restored with one enchor and decompression(?) and repair of torn labrum with about half inch of colar bone removed. Pre-op I was told that most likely all that was needed was the decompression abraidment(?) Similar to what I had done 10 years ago on the other shoulder. Post-op I learned about all the other that had been done from my wife.
So what da hell was that little bottle that kept flopin around on my back? Well thats the juice that kept the pain away that allowed me to spoon with my wife same as b4 surgery. Didn't miss a beat if you understand. But a week or so later I was reading the instructions and realized that I wasn't supposed to be not only laying on my surgery side, but sleeping in a chair! Anyway, I am 28 weeks = 7 months out, and at 59 years-old feel fotunate compared to other here. For about 2 months now I have had little to no pain. Can reach my hand half way up my back, doing push-ups of 40 reps of 120 lbs. (b-flex). Followed by 40 - 120 lbs butterflys. My weight is 140 lbs. Run average of 15 miles a week through mountains down streams and very rocky rough trails, jungle of costa rica. Before pushing the weights I warm up the shoulder by swinging a bat around in all dif directions, windmills and then stretching going across the chest arms outstreched with the bat side to side, then overhead. After 20 min of this 40 120 lbs reps each of curls, trap lifts, and shoulder lifts (standing and lifting outword and upword).
Over the months I have had pain in my shoulder blade area, something I have had for a long time that I think has to do with computer mouse fine movement. My wife has always been able to massage this out, but it calls for deep massage that is taxing on her. So I have discovered that if you take a soft ball, yeah a regular soft ball and slip it in a sock(long ankle) and laying on the bed, put it in the area just below the point of your scapula (wingbone). When you lay back on this you can manipulate your body/pull on the sock to find that right spot that is causing you the discomfort that I have found to be just very tight tendons that can be massaged into streching. This also works in the same area for the neck pain you get when you bend your head forward. This pain I have found can be stopped with only 5 minutes of this treatment.
As I said, this is my second surgery for this type of problem, and would I do it again? Def yes. At this time now when I swing the bat around I feel like I have more rom in the shoulder just operated on! The only discomfort I have is reaching across my chest around to the oposite scapula.

As of a few weeks ago I am 18 months post-op. I am a 30 yr old police sergeant/football player.. I had a SLAP and a posterior labral repair. I think a few of the other people who posted have it right. You must ask yourself if you will be totally committed to putting in the work required to get yourself back to "normal". Its not easy, and its frustrating and there will be good and bad days. I consider myself to be as close to 100% as I could ever be.. Even at this point- I still have days where my shoulder hurts ( especially if I do something I havent done, or stress my shoulder in a new way) I would definitely recommend repair!

Nice to have you respond with a positive after 18 months. During the process of recovery as you know, everyone wonders at certain times if the shoulder will ever feel normal again. It is always good to see those that are a success. Thanks

Im just over a year out of surgery. My labrum was shredded and took 5 anchors to fix. its been a long and tough year but im glad to say im sooo much better then i was before the surgery. Mopar is right though, there re times when my shoulder is tired and sore. Best example of this was the first time i went 214mph on a skydive. my shoulder was sore for almost a week.

i too would reccomend the procedure to anyone who is committed to a long and tough rehab..fish

I am now 6 months post-op from a SLAP repair with 2 anchors and a capsulorrhaphy. I am 100% glad that I went through with this surgery!! I am back to 100% and I honestly don't know the last time that I was. Thankfully my recovery has been a piece of cake, and I have felt great almost from the get go. Just a couple incidences of increased pain here and there, but nothing since a cortisone injection I got around 4.5 months post-op. If you are ready to put forth the effort to recover and stay positive, everything will work out. This is the right thing to do if you want to return to "normal." Just know beforehand what you are getting yourself into. And don't let the horror stories get to you, because there are a bunch of success stories for every one horror story!!