The common question people want to know is, how can I help with my shoulder pain? The first step is to figure out what’s causing it. So if you have pain in your shoulder and it’s negatively inhibiting your life, i.e., your sleep, your daily activities, your exercise, or just pain at rest, the number…
I love this question because I used to love lifting weights, but what does it mean when you have shoulder pain when you’re benching? There are many young guys who love lifting weights. I was one of them. I was a heavy weightlifter when I played football in college, and I love lifting weights and…
Is shoulder arthroplasty a major surgery? All surgeries should be taken seriously. It’s an operation. You’re going inside someone’s body, making changes. It’s gotten way slicker and way faster. Compared to where it was before, you know, with us now in our practice—and this isn’t every surgeon, but for us, we do it through a…
Will my shoulder ever be the same after shoulder surgery? The answer is no. It’s going to be much better. That’s why we’re doing the operation. You’re having an operation because something is torn, broken, or worn out in your shoulder. And if you’re getting it done by a specialist who does a high volume,…
A common question is how do I relieve shoulder blade pain? A lot of that depends on what it is. Often, when pain appears on the medial side of the shoulder blade, it can be something with your neck. However, we also see other disorders of the shoulder blade, like scapular dyskinesis, where we have…
A common question people have is, what does it mean if I have shoulder pain when I’m sleeping? First, it means that you have a serious problem and should come in and have it checked. Also, your quality of life is not good, so you need to figure out how to fix it. There are…
The question was, how do you check yourself for a torn rotator cuff? You really can’t. You need to confirm the diagnosis of a rotator cuff tear. You need some sort of imaging. Unless you have an MRI or an ultrasound machine at your house and you’re skilled in that way, I think it’s going…
The common question we get is what kind of tissue trauma occurs in reversal or arthroplasty. We come in through a deltopectoral approach, so no muscles are cut off. A subscapularis tendon, part of the rotator cuff, is often released and reattached after the operation. Now, some surgeons don’t reattach it, but I do because…
A common question is, what is reverse shoulder arthroplasty, and are reverse shoulder replacement and arthroplasty the same? We go inside the shoulder and replace it with a new metal ball and socket. Now, in reverse, it’s flipped. In normal anatomy, the ball is on the arm and shoulder joint, and the socket is on…
A common question people ask is, what’s the most common complication after reversal or arthroplasty? With that question, the most common complication is infection. We go to extreme lengths to prevent that in our practice. The overall national average, I think, is around 3%; we’re less than 1%. Many things we do are use antibiotic…
