It varies from patient to patient, but most time, I recommend working with a therapist for about four months after surgery. For the first couple of months, you’re just working on gentle motion stretching and things like that. After a couple of months, we start to do gentle strengthening. After three months, we remove all…
A huge red flag for me is you can’t sleep at night. If the shoulder stops you from being able to sleep at night or interrupts your sleep frequently because of the pain in your shoulder, that’s typically a pretty significant problem. You should have it checked out. If you have pain at rest, you’re…
It may surprise you that I don’t think formal therapy is necessary. However, I do believe that it helps patients get better faster and have less pain after surgery because of the guidance that the therapist gives them as they’re recovering. Every human being is unique in terms of how they recover from surgery. There’s…
I typically recommend about four months, after shoulder replacement surgery. That gets you all through the strengthening phases. Some people go for six months or a little longer, but we typically recommend around four months. We’ve got some cool stuff where we can do virtual therapy—you’re doing everything from home. So, just like I’m talking…
It’s not nearly as difficult as most patients who have had it done thought it would be. After about a week or two, most people have less pain than before surgery and can move their arms very quickly. We don’t force people to wear slings. We allow early active motion after shoulder replacement surgery. So…
The answer in the majority of patients is yes. We’re doing more and more reverses in patients who have intact rotator cuffs. We detach part of the rotator cuff, the subscapularis, and then reattach it for surgery. The less of the cuff, the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor, we leave, and we don’t mess with…
It depends on what you consider a major. In most people’s minds, staying in the hospital is a major operation. Our patients don’t stay in the hospital anymore. They go home as an outpatient. If surgeries take hours and hours, that’s a major operation. In my practice, we are hyper-specialized and we’re very efficient. We…
I do not put an age limit on rotator cuff surgery. Some surgeons make a mistake when they say, “You’re over this age, and if you look at the data, our healing rates are this.” Looking deeper into those studies, the right age is a factor. There’s no question that the older you are, the…
The answer is no, but it will be way better. That’s why we’re doing rotator cuff surgery to fix the problem in your shoulder. When you look at our data, we specialize in this surgery. In my practice, I do close to 400 rotator cuff repairs a year, which is way more than the average…
This is an interesting question. Most of the time, when your shoulder is tight and you’re not moving, it’s because of a scar in the glenohumeral joint. People can have scapulothoracic bursitis and some scar tissue there. The best way to start is just with therapy and working on stretching and strengthening. Occasionally, a cortisone…
