Hey all!
I had the unfortunate experience of separating my shoulder and was looking for some input from you guys.
My Doc, who is a good guy, tells me that they used to do surgery but that is no longer the standard of care for this type of injury. Basically he said 6 weeks off and then I should be back in action.
I just wanted to see if anyone out there has another opinion as this just seems kinda important, at least to me.
Thanks!
John
Hey John,
I have separated the same shoulder twice. 1st time was in HS wrestling, and the 2nd time was 16 years later and one week before IMH on my last training ride - talk about a bummer! Well, I raced anyway. Not my fastest IM, but maybe the one I am most proud of.
What can I tell you? I don’t know how old your ortho is, but they didn’t operate on mine in 1976 0r 1992. Immobilizer was the treatment both times. About 6 weeks each time.
Good luck - you’ll be OK.
I separated mine Class 2 AC separation sound familiar? The gory details are already on this board somewhere. I had it immobilized for 4 weeks (sling with the thumb loop), iced it almost every day, then self proscribed rehab (I was in the Navy, so it was not the best health care). I have some mobility problems and it aches after long swims but I think it healed great.
I did this about 5 years ago. They didn’t even mention surgery. It was imobilized for a couple weeks followed by some rehab. After about 6 weeks I was pretty much back to normal. I don’t have any pain today.
Dear John, I did a 3rd degree separation- basically exploding the tendon apart- on my right shoulder last winter while sledding…
The result of this was an orthopedic specialist telling me that it was my choice as to what I wanted done as far as surgery went. But he said that the result would be basically the same thing either way. (This was affected by the fact that I’m young- 20 I think.)
SO then I said no surgery and as soon as I had full range of motion- in probably 4+ weeks- went in the pool and did a swim workout- that was really dumb of me to do that. It set me back a few weeks becuase I restretched everything out again.
My advice to you is to wait, wear the sling all of the time, bike on a trainer and wait until all of the pain is gone to start to run, then start to rehab the muscles that wasted away (working through your back even) and then start to swim again. But this also depends on how severe your separation was…
Good Luck and Happy healing- let me know if you have any more questions…Erin
They’re graded by the amount of separation from a sprain with little or none to a full blown separation indicating a ligament rupture. They used to pin the more serious ones, but the ortho guys tell me that’s not as common nowadays.
Ice in the acute stage. A chiro or PT can give you ultrasound and other treatments.
I’ve see some guys with a cryo attachment to the sling to cool the area after surgery, I don’t know if it would help but might be worth asking your doctor.