I'll be having surgery in January to remove a hellacious bone spur from my left elbow. I'm getting an MRI in a week. The surgeon has yet to determine if one of my tricep heads will need to be reattached. I'm not thinking that is the case because surprisingly my strength is close to equal on both my left and right sides. He told me it's six weeks of being immobilized (splinted). Has anyone else had such a surgery and what was your experience. He said the surgery is simple for him, but the recovery for me will be the hard part. I'm just ready to get it done. It has affected my high elbow catch and swim symmetry as the weakness is exposed in the water. I'm just ready to get it done. It's like a dagger digging into the tendon. It even hurts at rest.
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Re: Future Elbow Surgery [mwanner13]
[ In reply to ]
Not that particular surgery, but I had my elbow reconstructed and a ruptured bicep tendon reattached back in March. Recovery has been slow. ROM, but no weight beyond a can of coke for 4 months. I hope you are correct and the tricep head does not need to be reattached as imagine that will stretch out your recovery.
Re: Future Elbow Surgery [chriskal]
[ In reply to ]
I hope so too. Four months and not being fully recovered is tough. I wish you the best in your recovery and hope for the best in my situation.
chriskal wrote:
Not that particular surgery, but I had my elbow reconstructed and a ruptured bicep tendon reattached back in March. Recovery has been slow. ROM, but no weight beyond a can of coke for 4 months. I hope you are correct and the tricep head does not need to be reattached as imagine that will stretch out your recovery.
Re: Future Elbow Surgery [mwanner13]
[ In reply to ]
It is peculiar to have a bone spur (which grows over time) to be such a cause for problems. Is there a history that you can detail which involves ruling out the neck and shoulder as far more common pain generators?
Re: Future Elbow Surgery [AndrewL]
[ In reply to ]
I had surgery 15 years ago to plate my right ulna just below the elbow. Even though the joint wasn't impacted by my bike crash, it took me nearly 6 months to regain ROM (I'm 1-2 degrees from full extension). Not to scare you, but the initial PT was just trying to force my arm to extend (they gave me something to bite on so I wouldn't bite my tongue). Two things that helped were sleeping with a dynasplint & lying on my back (to keep my shoulders flat on the ground) & using ankle weights around my wrist to try to pull my arm down to the floor. I built up the time that I could stand to have the weight pulling down on my arm, but that helped me get the final bit of ROM. Good luck with your recovery. It's going to be slow, but you will get there.
Unfortunately about 20 years of heavy weightlifting.
AndrewL wrote:
It is peculiar to have a bone spur (which grows over time) to be such a cause for problems. Is there a history that you can detail which involves ruling out the neck and shoulder as far more common pain generators?