Was looking at some of the links that Bird posted, I had forgotten about the "OUCH" thread and can update it some. Since then, I have learned that what I had was drastic compared to most RC repairs. In addition to the tear, I had an AC resection, the way it was explained to me, where the collar bone attaches to the shoulder at one time had an injury that I don't even remember. The end of that bone was dead and had to be trimmed back to fresh bone so it would heal.
About 5 wks after the surgery, I was coming out of the walk in garage door, it didn't shut on its own so I reached out to the side with my left arm and shoved the door shut, I knew immediately that I reinjured the shoulder. I kept telling the Dr. that I had pulled something loose, in Nov '04, he finally agreed to go in with a scope and repair it. I went through therapy again after the second surgery, but it didn't improve from before the scope. I was in a lot of pain and finally he just said he could do nothing else. I finally had my family Dr. refer me to a pain clinic. They really tried to help me, over the next two years, trying different hard drugs that would work. Anybody that has been there, knows that there are lots of side effects and over time, the hard stuff affects attitude, emotions and eventually takes a toll on others. My angel wife kept insisting that there was something that could be done so there was scheduling appts. with other Orthopedic Drs and then the disappointment with the same answer, "there's nothing we can do". After three other specialists, looked like what I was doing was about all the choice I had, things didn't look too rosy from where I sat.
My son in law is a sports nut and thinks he can play with the early 20 year old boys. He ripped his shoulder up playing ball and the Dr he used, fixed it and he went back to playing ball. The wife nagged me to go see him, I finally agreed to face one more disappointment. This was 4yrs since the original surgery, and one look at an Xray, he pointed to a spot and said, "That's not supposed to be there", a piece of bone. He went in with a scope and repaired it. The therapy was a breeze compared to the original and I haven't had a problem with it since. I then went through the process of getting off the Morphine, that was a rough month. The Dr. has since done my right rotator cuff and then had to fix another tear, then my right knee.
Long post just to say, rotator cuff surgery with a scope is not bad to get through considering the alternative is living with pain. The meniscuous (SP) tear repair was not as bad as the shoulder, but for me, it's not working, the joint is worn out and next week I get to see if my hip joint is going to have to be replaced. Now you know why some old men are CRANKY old men.
