This was not a side effect I was expecting when I had the surgery but the lack of sleep has finally caught up with me and I do not like it. My fuse is very very short today and it seems like anything will set me off. Two more weeks from tonight until I get this immobilizer off.
Hey Steve hope you got some sleep lastnight! I'm 32 yrs old and due to get my slap tear L shoulder done on the 24th of jan, i have had a couple surgeries before but this one bugs me for some reason , well i thinks it because i cant move my arm for 4-6 weeks.. So do you have any advise for me to keep my head straight !! and hows was the pins afterwards ??
ReplyDeleteKat -
ReplyDeleteFirst off...the pins are not bad at all. I was expecting to be in tons of pain after the surgery but I really wasn't. The pain was more of a stiffness than anything.
As far as advice regarding not moving the arm...yes it is true you are not supposed to move your arm at your shoulder very much. The fact of the matter is that when I am sitting in my recliner I take the sling off just to get it out of the thing and breathe and move my arm around from the elbow down. That helps a ton and is actually recommended to do several times a day to prevent stiffness in your elbow. As long as you keep you arm in the same position as it is in the sling it should be ok. And depending on what your doctor decides you will be starting therapy 2-3 weeks after surgery which will get your arm moving a little bit.
The hardest part as you can tell from my posts is the sleeping. I have never been able to sleep on my back which is a huge part of the reason I am not getting any sleep and the fact that I always sleep on my left side (which is the the shoulder I had the surgery on)doesn't help. Talking to a couple of other people I am in therapy with...they told me they didn't have as much difficulty sleeping as I do. So I guess it is going to depend on your situation. For your sake hopefully you won;t have any issues. You can ask you doctor for a script for sleeping pills as well. I decided against that and just bought a bottle of Unisome and am using that. It is helping a little but not as much as I would like.
A little advise to give though...make sure your doctor gives you a prescription for pain killers for when your therapy starts. My therapist told me to make sure I take my pain killers 1 hour before therapy each day and I am glad she did. I remembered for my first 3 sessions and I was in very little pain after. I forgot to take them before yesterday's session and forgot to take them after and I am paying for it right now.
One more key thing on how everything goes is if you have a great doctor and therapist or not. My doctor came highly recommended by former patients of his and my physical therapist. My doctor was a team doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Penguins and the New England Revolution and is currently the team physician for Olivette Nazarene University and U.S. Soccer.
And my therapist appears to be top notch too. She knows just how far to push the exercises without causing pain while gaining the most out of it.
Last piece of advice...start doing things around the house with the arm that will not be operated on. You will be amazed on what you will not be able to do without help after the surgery. Invest in a lot of slip on clothes such as pants / shorts with elastic waistbands, shoes that easily slip on and button down shirts because it will be difficult to get on over the head shirts for a while.
Hopefully this helped you out and if you have any other questions feel free to leave a comment or you can e-mail me at smacri@sbcglobal.net.
Good luck on your surgery.