It's now a week after the surgery.... went for a checkup. Got the sutures out. Now I can take a shower.
Also, was told that I should wear the sling mainly as a reminder NOT to use the shoulder muscles (using hand and lower arm is OK), but I do NOT need the pillow. Hooray! That pillow held my arm out about 6 inches from my body, making it difficult to do a lot of things.
Here is the rundown:
- Internally, my shoulder was pretty well used (ie, beat up)
- The labrum (lip of cartilage that helps define the shoulder socket) was frayed in front and back.
- The humeral head ( top of arm bone) was missing some cartilage (area size of nickel/quarter)
- The tendon of the supraspinatus was hanging on by threads.
- Bone spur on bottom of acromium (bone at top of shoulder)
Surgery summary:
1) clean up loose pieces of cartilage from the labrum and the humeral head
2) re-attach the torn part of the tendon - put screw into humeral head and use 2 stitches to attach. Sort of like "hemming" a torn seam in cloth.
3) acromial decompression - shave off the bottom side of the acromium (bone) to allow more room for the tendon to move
4) rough up (scrape/drill) the area of the humeral head that is missing the cartilage. This is to promote blood to flow and, hopefully, "scar cartilage" (new cartilage growth)
Pictures from the surgery
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