What to Expect When Recovering From Rotator Cuff
Despite most rotator cuff injuries can be helped with non-surgical solutions, your physician may advise rotator cuff surgery to fix the tears that are in the shoulder. Certainly, the kind of surgery you have will depend on several things. No matter what kind of surgery you have, the steps to rotator cuff surgery recovery are much the same.
Day of the Operation
In most cases, you need not stay overnight in the hospital since this is an outpatient procedure. However, you will have to stay in the hospital until such time that shoulder pain is managed through home medications. Your arm will also be encased in a specialized protective sling. This way, your shoulder and arm muscles will be in a relaxed position, hence, facilitating the healing process.
Some tips to speed up rotator cuff surgery recovery during the first few days after the operation, which are very important in the later phases, include:
-Ease your pain by taking your pain medications as soon as you feel pain in your shoulder.
-Try some different mixes of pain and anti-inflammatory medications with the advice of your physician.
-Apply an ice bag over your shoulder to lessen pain and help healing.
-When going to sleep, sleep in a semi-seated position with your elbows facing down.
Stages of Recovery
It must be emphasized that the phases of rotator cuff surgery recovery will vary from one person to the next in terms of the time taken to progress from one phase to another. As such, it is best to comply with your personalized rehabilitation protocol.
The first stage of recovery can go on for nearly 6 weeks, where you will be asked to only do passive motions. What this mean is not to work or stress out the rotator cuff tendons and muscles. During this stage, your physical therapist will do two things. He will firstly move your recovering shoulder for you and secondly, he will give you guidance on how to move your shoulders with as little muscle contractions as possible.
In the second part, you will be asked to move your arm on your own though you must not move it against any resistance at all. This is named the active motion phase and can go on up to 12 weeks from the time you have surgery.
The third stage is considered the strengthening part of your recovery where you will concentrate on performing isolation exercises to give strength to muscles that have become weak because of lack of activity. This is the most important stage in rotator cuff surgery recovery because full muscle function can come back once this stage is completed well.
Throughout stage four, you can go back to using your shoulders as you always would. Certainly many things affect this stage that can go on up to 6 months after the operation and you will still have to follow the advice of your physician about going back to your old physical activities.
Lastly, your devotion to rehabilitation, the extent and location of the rotator cuff tear and your physical condition will determine how quickly you will recover from rotator cuff surgery.
Tom Nicholson has spent years helping carpal tunnel sufferers. You can follow this link to learn more aboutrotator cuff surgery recovery.
