Hey everyone. I'm day 11 out from my surgery. My surgeon went in and fixed up my labrum on my right shoulder. It wasn't torn but instead it was stretched out so he basically just folded it over and used three anchors to put it back to its correct place. Day 1 out from surgery he had me doing 3 types of pendulum swings 3x per day. On my post op appointment with him which was day 8, he had me incorporate front lateral raises and external rotations as well. Ever since I started doing the lateral front raises my shoulder has been giving me more problems. Doing them passively and using my left hand to support my arm is easy but when I try to do the raises with solely the right arm/shoulder it hurts pretty bad. It makes me pretty nervous because I'm hoping I didn't mess something up trying to do them witout any help from my good arm. I'm gussing this is to be expected but I just feel like it's too much too soon! He also told me I could be out of the sling and using the shoulder for things such as eating, drinking, brushing my teeth and such as long as it was in my house. I do still wear my sling out in public as he instructed me to. Anyone have such an aggressive recovery as I do? I always thought you wanted a couple weeks of literally not using the shoulder at all as to let the anchors heal correctly but my OS had me doing exercises THE DAY after the op. I just don't want them to rip out and ruin and be back to square one.

Hi Matt

I am now 9 weeks post surgery.

From day 1 I was doing pendulum and passive range of motion exercises. I was told this is very important to prevent frozen shoulder and general loss of range of motion. I wasn't doing any active movements though, and from what I've read that sounds unusual. If it hurts then stick to the passive movements until the next time you see your doctor, and ask him about it then.

I was also told by my doctor I could take my arm out the sling for things such as typing etc. Basically I was allowed to do movements using my forearm, without any weight, or that engaged the bicep much (i also have an anchor in my biceps tendon). It was 2 or 3 weeks before I was comfy eating and cleaning teeth with that arm though, but it did come back very quickly.

Hi Matt,

Sounds very aggressive to me, the most i was cleared to do was passive or passive assisted in the early weeks and my recovery program was aggressive. The most i did in the first 4 weeks was spider walks or pulleys

I would call and clarify

Hey guys thanks for the replies! I called and spoke with my surgeon today and he assured me that everything I have been doing is in fact correct and that I should not be worried. Basically just told me to do what doesn't hurt. While it does seem very agressive, I will definitely follow his orders seeing as though he is the professional and hopefully the recover goes quickly and successfully!

It takes a LOT to loosen anchors. Sounds like it is working out now - just don't do anything beyond what the doc and PT suggest, even though it would seem easy to "push" it. Pendulums usually start the day after surgery - any shoulder surgery. I didn't learn the correct way to do them until my fifth go-round.

Rider, the pendulum swings are like a gift from heaven and I find them to feel awesome on my recovering shoulder. Like I said, I did call my surgeon yesterday to ask him if he really thought it was necessary for me to be doing the active arm raises and external rotations so soon out of surgery (8 days at the time) and he was confident that as long as I don't go too far on the range of motion with these exercises I should be okay. They have been hurting quite a bit though. Any active ROM I do brings some pretty sharp shooting pains to my shoulder and I have to wait a few seconds for the pain to dissappear. Even reaching over to my left shoulder with my repaired shoulder/arm kills. I'm just hoping that by doing the active forward flexions so soon upon the operation I didn't permanently mess something up.