I had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff in July 2017. Due to living far away from a physio familiar with my surgery, I only saw him once every six weeks or so. He checked my range of motion each time for progress and gave me stretching drills (and eventually strength drills) to build the strength and ROM back. One thing he stressed was to only move to the point I felt a bit of pain, and no further. That protocol worked for me.
I've have other surgeries before, and I have never been advised to go past the point of mild discomfort.
You may want to seek another opinion on the rehab. That sounds odd, at least to me.
There was a discussion or two about torn labrums on the main page last summer. You may want to search the forum for those.
Good luck.

Welcome. Haven't seen you in awhile. Missed your presence.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not a physio or a medic but have been dealing with a frozen joint (hip), with impingement removed and new labrum grafted in.

my experience is that pain and immobility are defenses set up by the body to prevent further grinding/deterioration. After surgery, mobility is again possible, but the joint and brain take a long while to 'unlearn' the old defense.

FWIW what's worked for me (over months) is gentle resistance in the correct plane against a theraband, to shaking but not to pain (which I would lock up against, exactly the opposite of the goal). Multiple reps, multiple times a day.

I've been through PT for two knee surgeries, two shoulders and bilateral hip replacements. You should not be in that kind of pain. Go talk to your surgeon. And you probably should find a new PT.

After my hip surgeries, they had me on the stationary bike, just rocking back and forth. I wanted to get the pedals over the top and it was killing me. The PT was yelling at me to stop. You shouldn't be in that kind of pain.

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

From my experience dealing with PTs, there are some that are really good and know how to properly progress a patient, and then there are others who you would think are just winging it. And this applies to PTs who have been doing it for years. Just like you should do with a doctor, you don't trust or want a different opinion, I'd do the same with your PT. I've heard shoulder PT can be quite painful but I'm not sure what you are experiencing is the proper way to do it. Before this gets too far along, seek another opinion.

I had torn labrum surgery. PT and ROM restoration were so painful I was sure it was doing damage, but it started to improve after about 5 months. I also was fortunate to be under the guidance of a PT who is very successful with athletes so I could fully trust his process. After a year, rock and roll - it was like there was never a problem. Stick with it and good luck to you.

Depends on what is causing the pain. If some structure is being pinched that's not good, or if some tissue is being excessively stretched that may not be good, e.g. a musculotendonus structure. OTOH, if it's your joint capsule that is being stretched because it's scarring down than probably no harm. If it scars down too much and you end up with a "frozen shoulder" that can't be resolved by PT, the alternative is to be put under and have the doc physically tear the scar tissue to restore your range of motion.

I did leave out a detail: when the PT is done, the pain stops immediately. I feel only a little sore after and they put ice on me and one of those electrical current things.

EDIT: It's more the psychological angle that I was wondering about.



Thanks. It has been a while. Getting old here.

If you get through a lot of pain with a positive outcome- long term I would think you would look back and process it as worth it.

I had an inferior (corrected this) dislocation that took and 8 hour surgery to fix. PT was painful for months. But 20 years later I am thankful that I went through it and had such a great outcome.

But everyone is different.

What are you worried about the outcome being?

Edited - to fix type of dislocation

I don't know. It just seemed like all of this pain might have some unpleasant outcome I wasn't yet aware of.

Just like deep tissue massage therapy, PT can be painful too. I work almost only with hips and knees, knee treatment after replacement can be pretty painful. For shoulders I can' t really comment as my experience with them is very limited.

I’ve been in tears from physio treatments. I will put up with pain if it makes things better.

Mentally I don’t think it took toll. Being in pain 24/7 from a torn ligament and not being able to exercise, or even walk much, ground me down. The treatments at least gave me hope things would get better.

You are damn right on that! Had times physical therapy after my knee replacement surgery was the worst pain ever. At one point after or five months, I crack and got so frustrated about the whole thing and had a meltdown at physical therapy. But mentally, I now know how much I can take!

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com