I tore my labrum in the summer of 2005 during summer baseball. In 2005, there weren't really any viable options beyond surgery, especially if you want to compete and perform at a high level.

I can tell you that the rehab requires the same determination and methodical approach as training for triathlons. Regaining the range of motion and then rebuilding the small supporting muscles in the shoulder is a very tedious process. My rehab took around 6 months until the doctors said I was "healthy" but it was another 6 months until my arm really felt right. I was able to continue playing baseball and played four years in college with no recurring problems.

I imagine the methods for rehab and recovery have advanced greatly in the last five years, and unless you are putting your arm through the acute stresses related to throwing a baseball, the time to recovery should be shorter.

I'd be glad to answer any specific questions you may have.

Torn both of mine...

My left shoulder was a tear that was not noticeable on the MRI. It kept giving me trouble and when the DR went in to to "clean it up" (I had some inflammation), they noticed a huge tear (DRs words). They fixed it and the rehab was total misery, but it was good...should good as new now. Any specifics, let me know.

Kevin

I did IMWI 2008 with a torn labrum (and some other minor issues) in right shoulder. Cortisone shot got me through it. No option but surgery. I was advised that it would never heal w/o surgery.

Surgery was easy. Rehab kinda sucked. If you are religious with it, you can get in the pool about 5 months after surgery. Full recovery w/o any issues after about 6-7 months or so.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Yes, get it fixed asap. It will only get worse. PT before will likely cause it to worsen. It is torn, Miracle Grow isn't going to work on it. Don't live in pain. There was another on ST I directed to get this done earlier this year. I have rec'd no less than a half dozen 'Thank You' messages from him saying how I put him over the edge on deciding whether to do this or not. He is so happy he did & is back in action only shortly after the surgery. Important thing is to be very, very dedicated to recovery & PT AFTER the surgery. Just get it done & you'll be so happy you did.

Ruined my life, but it's my fault for not doing PT. PLEASE BE SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR PT.

I had my right done in 2007 and just had my left done on May 6th. The first month is nothing, absolutely nothing, except pain maybe. Then things start to loosen up and gradually get better.

My right had a small tear and one area that had torn and healed over, my left, tore from the 6 oclock position to the 1 oclock position. 5 anchors.

I'm just going to echo everybody else, don't wait ot have it done, it won't heal by itself and only gets worse with time. Also, like everybody else, I cannot stress the rehab enough. With my right arm my insurance wouldn't pay for rehab and I refused to pay 200 bucks a pop for 3x/wk for 3mths so I just did some stuff at home. WRONG ANSWER. My arm was not healing and the ROM was terrible. I broke down and went to a friend that is a PT and he worked my arm over. 5x/wk for a couple mths. It hurt like hell but I got through. I could have saved myself a ton of pain and trouble if I had rehabbed on schedule.

Good luck, PM if you have questions.

CS

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To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

Michael, help us a little. What are your symptoms? Why was the MRI ordered? Are you still training? Any history of shoulder injury, surgery, dislocation, injections? Tendinitis of what? Dominant or non-dominant shoulder? Occupation and triathlon past/desires?

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John H. Post, III, MD
Orthopedic Surgeon
Charlottesville, VA

John,
Basically I've been dealing with some pain in the shoulder for at least six months but nothing too terrible. Finally had enough and went to see the ortho and was diagnosed with secondary impingement syndrome. PT for about two months didn't help so I had the MRI which discovered the tendonitis and tear. I am waiting on the official MRI results from the doc and should have that in a few days.
As far as the cause, no direct trauma. I'm 47 years old, thin with limited muscle mass, and have a history with tendonitis, epicodylitis (both elbows and surgery on one), etc. As much as I enjoy it I guess my body isn't cut out for this.......Still bike and run but I stopped swimming three + months ago and the pain has lessend. It doesn't wake me up at night and is only problematic when I try to do anything with my arm above my head, throwing, etc. No surgery, injections, etc. My doc recommended PRP but I have a friend who works for a company that manufactures PRP kits and he says that PRP won't help. Dominant shoulder. Actually this shoulder was dislocated when I was about 8 years old. Occupation is sales. I've done multiple Oly, halfs, and one full. I'd like to do mostly olys and halfs (3-4 races a year) and at least one more full.
Hope this helps and thanks for your input.

I had surgery for a torn labrum about 18 months ago. I wasted 2 years trying anything and everything to avoid surgery. Nothing helped. I couldn't swim 50 yards without excruciating pain. The first couple of months post-op is pretty much hell. I spent the next 6 months swimming 1 armed butterfly (with zoomers). It took a solid 10 months before i could use my right arm for swimming, and over a year before I really started to trust it. It is now about 18 months post op and I've done 2 races and don't hesitate doing anything including butterfly. If you get surgery sooner rather than later, you could be racing again by next summer.

In dec. 08 I tore my RC and labrum (I fell on the run...how dumb is that)...The ortho surg. said surgery was needed. I seeked a second opinion (not online mind you...) and the second guy said that for a small tear, with someone active, he'd rather wait, do PT work without surgery and see how it goes. I read as much as I could in the literature, and concluded that he was probably a much better advice than the first person I saw.

It took close to a year to heal on its own, but that said it's about the same with surgery, with recovery time and PT work post surgery...In other words, seek a second opinion, and maybe opt for the cautious, non-surgical approach.

Had sugery done three years ago. There was no way I was getting better without it, I actually felt better immediately after surgery than I did before and only needed a couple of days of tylenol to be pain free. Don't listen to the horror stories on the internet about this being the end of your athletic career. It took about a year to completely rehab but I haven't had any problems since and can swim and lift as much as I did previously with no limitations. I think at the most I have 1 degree less of shoulder external rotation. FWIW I am a Certified Athletic Trainer and did all the rehab myself as the physical therapist I initally saw had no concept of how to rehab it properly and thought that doing ultrasound over my AC joint would fix everything. My advice, find a good orthopedic who does this often and follow the post surgical recovery guidelines as they have a huge impact on how you shoulder will heal. There will be plenty of time to push your rehab later on but the first 8-10 weeks is very important, even opening a jar with your hand on the injured has been shown to stress the labrum. Then find someone who knows what they are doing in terms of rehabbing this injury, don't go to the dude that just works with people needing to get back to work, find someone that deals with athletes.

I had labral reconstruction surgeries in 2007 for right shoulder (5 anchors) and 2010 for left shoulder (4 anchors). In my case, it was an issue of shoulder instability and frequent dislocations. The standard protocol for post-surgery rehab would be sling/immobilization for 6 weeks and no running for 12 weeks. I was able to start swimming easy at around 12 weeks but many doctors will recommend 14-16 weeks before swimming. I would find out who the best shoulder ortho is in your area and get his/her opinion on the MRI.

A bunch of labrum tear stories (including mine) are in this thread: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1699096

Had a labrum tear in my left shoulder. Tried different things for roughly 6 months. Had surgery last October. Wish I had opted for the surgery earlier.
The surgery itself was fine -- out-patient and missed 1 day of work. Wore a sling religiously for ~6 weeks (the prescribed period) -- even though I felt like I could have shed the sling earlier. Started PT immediately after surgery -- surgery was on a Friday -- first PT appointment was the next Tuesday. MAKE YOUR PT APPOINTMENT BEFORE YOUR SURGERY. I followed all of the PT's recommendations -- no more, no less. Was able to get back in the pool in late December -- albeit very short distances (started with 500m). Gradually progressed with swimming and swam a 31min HIM leg 3 weeks ago. Not fast, but I'll take it. Still gets sore from time to time -- although I think it's more from improper swim technique than the injury.

Good luck!

M-lots of information here. Although many posters have had good luck with surgical repair of the labrum, you'd like to be certain that this is the pain generator before submitting to an operation. You'll want the final MRI interpretation as well. What is torn? Where? How big, easy/hard to fix? Is the rotator cuff torn too?

PRP is a different story and there are multiple opinions from wonder drug to worthless. For what it's worth, no one in my area does it (yet) and insurance does not pay for it, not here anyway. A simple corticosteroid injection into the bursa accompanied by lidocaine is an excellent tool in the Orthopedists bag of tricks that can help nail down a diagnosis as well as make many better if not cured. In short, you'll be rewarded for thoroughness and patience here.

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John H. Post, III, MD
Orthopedic Surgeon
Charlottesville, VA

John,

Do you have any sense of the state of the practice in terms of accuracy of the MRI's when looking for potential damage in the shoulder area? When I had my MRI (with contrast), there were only very minor signs of problems in my labrum. I opted for the surgery, and upon full inspection, a much more serious tear was revealed. Granted, this was in 2005, but I have heard similar stories from teammates and others in the baseball world where these injuries are fairly common.

Just as an aside, I opted for bioabsorbable anchors and sutures as part of my surgery after doing some research and consulting with my surgeon. It is great comfort to know that the labrum actually healed back down with nothing remaining in the shoulder. I was acutally able to do a 1 year post surgical MRI (for research) which showed everything had healed normally.

C - tough question because there are so many variables. In 2005, fewer shoulder MRI's were done with contrast like yours and I'd suspect there's somewhat of a learning curve on their interpretation. Also, since these scans are "slices" through the joint, many times, with surgical photos in hand, a post-operative review of the MRI by both surgeon and radiologist still fails to reveal pathology! Some folks expect the MRI to show "everything" but like anything that's a product of technology - like trying to stop flowing oil in the Gulf - it often has short comings.

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John H. Post, III, MD
Orthopedic Surgeon
Charlottesville, VA

I dealt with a partially torn labrum for about 15 years before it was finished it off with an 'event' in OIF January '09. Prior to January '09, I had limitations that limited sports I could play (rugby) and particular ranges of motion and weight that I would avoid as it would cause my shoulder to feel like it would 'roll forward'. During that time swimming was not an issue unless I went over an hour doing freestyle, backstroke was no problem.

Having said that, my injury was the front of the shoulder. Through the years weight lifting led to the muscles around the shoulder compensating to hold the shoulder in place and didn't limit my ability to swim.

I had surgery in November, and was swimming within 3 months. I have 99% range of motion (its still a little tight when I try to go straight over my head). But I'm swimming pain free and doing Kansas 70.3 this year.

It will more than likely require surgery some day, when depends on your particular case.

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"It's easy to be hard, it's hard to be smart"

Hello,

I was diagnosed with a labrum tear. It happened 2 years ago when I was 27. It may be from tennis or weight lifting or both.

I wonder whether to have surgery or not. My shoulder gets sore after overhead activities like serving in tennis. Then it hurts for one month. After a month it hurts only in certain motions. I can do all things with my shoulder right now with very little pain that occurs only when I twist my hand.

I read about surgery. Some people get 90-100% to what they were before, but most have lost range of motion and still have pain.

I consulted 3 doctors. 2 of them said I need surgery if I want to be back to normal, one of them said I'd better not to have surgery because it is not 100% sure and my shoulder is not bad right now.

What are your thoughts on this? Should I have surgery or not?

I had a labrum tear grade 4, really there was no option for me except surgery. So, this is just my experience. Surgery is pretty tough in the immediate recovery period but then after the swelling goes down it is SOOOOOO much better. I couldn't even throw a baseball with my son. I had a bicep tenodesis (reattach the bicep tendon into the upper humerus) instead of a traditional slap repair. The doctor explained that healing tends to be better with that because better vascular supply to the humerus than into the actual shoulder joint. The reason I got into triathlon was I enjoyed the swimming rehab I did after surgery and I really needed to stop playing rugby and try to avoid those types of injuries. I don't really notice any loss in range of motion. However, I still have to deal with some significant arthritis in my shoulder, not caused by surgery and would've had that either way. So, I can't answer if you should have surgery but it was really good for me.

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