My 3rd appointment with Dr. Hall and 8 months since my shoulder surgery I wish she had done.

Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t realize a cortisone shot was going to be suggested ahead of time!

Shoulder just over 7 months

I feel like my all-the-time shoulder pain is letting up, and that my strength and movement is incredibly limited.

Dr. Hall said

Historic Johnson Farms, WaterFALLing in HSF, shoulder@6 months and Florence

 

I think I’ve been to Historic Johnson Farms three times now but the first two were during their spring festival event. It’s open when the schools are open to the public to walk around for free and I met a photographer friend there to walk and shoot. 

No comparison in shoulder docs!

The amount of time, listening, actual hands-on testing and palpation of my shoulder, movement evaluation, the physical therapy instructions demonstrated and just the overall time that we were shown us today by Dr. Suzanne Hall and the PA Maureen were outstanding. To sum it up they spent more time with me today explaining, examining, going over my MRI and surgery, than all the time pre and post I received from the surgeon who actually did my surgery.

The instructions of the post care was night and day also. One gave me absurd post -op instructions, the likes of which I never heard for anyone else, and had an assistant hand me a piece of paper and the bands – that was it. Maureen went over each one. Dr. Hall went over my MRI images with me. The surgeon who did my surgery did not. Seems like most of my issues came from following the surgeon’s absurd post care instructions, losing the sling too early, using my arm too much, too early, and doing resistance PT WAY too soon all as instructed. I wish he’d just said “hey, I’m the surgeon and I don’t give out post care instructions.” It’s okay to not know. It’s not okay to dispense horrible instructions.

Despite the fact that the post care instructions and PT were completely different than what Dr. Hall would do, she did not put down or say anything negative about the doctor that did my surgery. It was hard to miss the shock that briefly passed across on Maureen’s face when she heard those instructions and when she heard that it was 2 months after my stitches came out before I had another appointment. I’m guessing they don’t span that long in follow up care and they came right out and said their post care instructions were not the same at all.

Shoulder at 5 months, and in 6 days I get a 2nd

The end of July, beginning of August my migraines came back with a vengeance and I felt like my head had been transported back in time to when migraines plagued me for weeks at a time. After 2 weeks of this, I went to the chiropractor and he fixed my “all jacked up neck.” That helped a lot. I told him he still couldn’t do much with my arm movement at 4 1/2 months post-op because it was still painful. He asked if I wanted a referral for a second opinion. He could call Jones or Hall.

I picked Dr. Suzanne Hall. I wasn’t planning on making an appointment until after 6 months but I wasn’t sure how long it’d take to get in so I had them refer me.

Shoulder is a smidgeon better at 4 months post-op

Definitely not what I hoped for. If you read what I said a month ago very little has changed, so no need for me to make a new photo of what still hurts where, until there is improvementent  😦 

3 month post surgery shoulder update

If enough had changed I was going to update the diagram of what hurt where but very little has changed in the last month besides me gaining new knowledge.

I went to my follow-up that really didn’t really answer much of anything. I decided to get a copy of my MRI and surgery report.

The shoulder is connected to the latissimus dorsim the latissimus dorsims is connected to rib bones, the ….

I really thought I handled pain, other than needles, as well as the next person. I’ve spent years dealing with migraines, not that I had much of a choice when one hits. With my open abdominal hysterectomy, the recovery wasn’t too bad at all,  it wasn’t that much worse than the monthly pain with endometriosis. I’d gotten my hopes up that an arthroscopic shoulder surgery with its small incisions would go even better than a big abdominal incision that required my guts to be set aside, parts removed, and then put back together.  I was wrong.

It has not gone like I’d hoped. I’m not sure how much of that was affected by the too early use of resistance bands or my rib and back pain that wasn’t really addressed.

We watch crime, court, thriller and action movies. Whenever someone is in injured, you always hear them say, that the “person is a fighter”. I don’t recall someone ever saying, something like,  “well so-and-so is a big wuss and if anyone can’t pull through this it will be them”.

6 weeks postop and I’m making a change

Today I made the decision that feels like pure common sense to me to stop PT with the bands. This is what I sent the surgeon this morning. “I started back with the bands daily as instructed. The pain got worse again. I tried every other day instead of daily, and my recovery is still going the wrong way. IF, and only if a PT would give me guidance for now and tell me what to do later I’d like to go once. If they insist on multiple visits I’m going to just continue movements like this https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/recovery/shoulder-surgery-exercise-guide/ and see if I can start hurting less than before the surgery. I am going in the wrong direction in pain and movement with the band pt.”

This post is solely about my shoulder if that helps you to decide to click to read more or not. Here’s my Pinterest page about the shoulder. 

What I learned I needed or would have done differently with my shoulder surgery -at one month.

If you or someone you know isn’t going thru shoulder problems just skip this post as it will probably be of little interest to you.

This post is about what I really needed, what was nice to have and what I would have done differently. Posting this at 1 month post-op.  My surgery was on my dominant right arm and what I’m writing only applies to what I personally learned. I’ve realized short hair, flat chested folks would likely have an easier time with shoulder surgery.  On a positive note, I will say I think this is the first time I’ve actually had fingernails past my fingertips on all 5 fingers at one time from not using my right arm as much. 🙂