Surgery

I had the surgery on Friday morning. They found a large full thickness tear and a delamination of the supraspinatus tendon. The surgeon was able to repair the delamination of the two strata of the supraspinatus, and repair the tear. He was also able to successfully reattach the biceps tendon. He said the biceps tendon appeared to have exploded inside my arm. There was also a full thickness tear of the infraspinatus tendon and a labral tear that were both repaired.

They gave me a nerve block in my neck to make my shoulder and arm completely numb prior to surgery.

The nerve block wears off after 16 hours. For anybody that is considering doing this, that is an important piece of information. When the nerve block wears off the pain is excruciating. I was advised to stay ahead of the pain, taking two oxycodone tablets every four hours. When the nerve block wore off, it was clear that this was not enough. I increased the oxycodone dosage to three tablets every four hours, plus I started taking 1000 mg of extra strength Tylenol every eight hours. This was about the right amount of pain medication to make the pain tolerable.

Moving hurts. The joint does not appreciate any motion from me, especially repositioning myself in the bed or in a chair.

I believe the pain results at least in part from the pumping of saline into the joint during surgery. I believe they do this to expand the joint to make it easier to perform the procedures.

I am icing constantly and keeping on the pain med schedule. The ice cuff machine they sent me home with is useless. I keep knocking it off the table, it's not cold enough, and the recirc keeps getting stuck. I'm icing with lots of ice in ZipLoc freezer bags - works much better. {Edit - to use the ice cuff machine, connect the hose to the cuff, have someone raise the cooler about 18 inches above the cuff, turn it on and let it fill. Then turn it off and disconnect it. Refill every 30 minutes or whenever it needs to be re-cooled. This would have been nice to know before leaving the hospital.}