FINAL UPDATE

So I just came across my blog and realized I never finished it off.  So for those of you interested, the rest of the recovery went great and I was done by mid-April of 2011.  Everything went great and I was 100% fully recovered less than 1 year after the surgery.  Now almost 2 years later I am totally pain free and the shoulder is feeling great.  So I hope this blog has been / will be helpful for anyone who is planning on having this surgery.

I'm Back!

I am going to post several posts tonight to get caught up with where I am at.  It has been a rough week between my laptop crashing, 2 feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures.  Here is a little taste of what it looked like in Chicago the day after the Blizzard.

The fence back there is 4 feet tall and you can barely see the top

2/3 Update

Sorry for the delay in updating the website.  A combination of things has prvented me from doing it from my laptop crashing to a historic blizzard hitting us 2 days ago.  I will give a detailed update this weekend regrding my therapy and the new exercises I have been doing.  Thanks.

Last Night's Session / New Exercises / Sleep

Last night's session was the toughest by far.  Besides my shoulder being sore I walked out of there sore in my back, hips, thighs and abs because I was tensing all of those muscles during the session.  Beth stretched the crap out of me and she added 1 new stretch that turned out to be pretty brutal.  Now I am trying not complaining about these stretches because I know they are all part of the process...but man did it suck.  It wasn't so much pain as it was an intense tightness in the shoulder...almost to the point that I began to wonder if my arm was just going to come right off.  And yo know what, that might have been a better option at the time.  Let me tell ya...I am glad it is over.

I did get 3 new exercises to do at home and I will add photos as soon as I can find them.  All 3 are done with red resistance bands.  For the first one I grab the band,  put my elbow at my side, extend my forearm out 90 degrees from my body then take 2 decent sized side steps to my right.  I do 1 set of 10 for this.

The next exercise is essentially the same.  The only difference is I turn my body around so that the bad comes across the front of my chest first and my steps are then taken to the left.  I then follow the same instructions and do 1 set of 10.

For the third exercise I grab each end of the band with each arm while my arms are extended outward.  I then pull back in a rowing motion until my elbows are even with my sides.  I don't want to go past that neutral plane in this exercise just yet.  For this I did 2 sets of 20.  These 3 exercises are now added to my home activity.  The only difference between the actually exercise and the photo is that I stand straight up.  I do not bend my legs.

As far as sleep goes it is still a struggle.  I have not slept all the way through the night since the surgery.  Last night was actually the first night I slept in my bed the entire night since Dec 15th.  That doesn't mean that I slept the entire night...it just means I was too lazy to get up and come downstairs.  It just seems like every move I make I feel in my shoulder and I just can't get comfortable in the first place.  Eventually I will get a full night sleep...eventually.

Tonight's Home Therapy Session

Things were going fine tonight until I came to the external rotation in abduction exercise.  I gave the shoulder a really good tweak in my second set of 10 and was unable to finish the exercise.  I rested the arm for a bit and tried my wall slides and that was pretty painful so I only wound up doing one set of 10 for this just to play it safe.  Hopefully it was just a god tweak and it will feel fine in an hour or so.  Icing it down right now and praying for a good nights sleep.

Nothing To Do With A SLAP Tear

Just wanted to take a moment to say this blog has been international for a few weeks now.  Below is a list of all countries viewing my blog:

Range Of Motion Measurements

Tonight was the 3rd time I had my Range Of Motion measurements taken since my surgery and by all accounts things are going great.  The measurements have been:

SHOULDER ABDUCTION

• Initial Visit - 95 degrees
• Jan 18th - 126 degrees w/help and 123 on my own
• Jan 25th - 143 degrees w/help and 131 on my own

SHOULDER FLEXION

• Initial - 115 degrees
• Jan 18th - 152 degrees w/ help and 127 on my own
•  Jan 25th - 155 degrees w/ help and 142 on my own

SHOULDER EXTENSION

• Initial Visit - Neutral
• Jan 18th - not tested
• Jan 25th - 83 degrees

SHOULDER INTERNAL ROTATION

• Initial Visit -@45 degrees - 87 degrees
• Jan 18th - @45 degrees - 87 degrees
•                 @ 90 degrees - 78 degrees
• Jan 25th - Not Tested

 SHOULDER EXTERNAL ROTATION

• Initial Visit - To Neutral
• Jan 18th - 78 degrees
• Jan 25th - 83 degrees