Had it done last year. Labrum most of the way around, small rotator cuff tear and small biceps tendon tear that basically was fixed as part of the labrum. ft was both worse than I expected and better than I expected. Would not hesitate to do it again if things are bad enough. Some of my timeline stuff may be a bit off as I was pretty medded up and its been a little while and would vary person to person anyway.
The initial pain level was worse than I expected. Took A LOT of Percocet for the first 2 weeks. Didn't do much more that lay on the little nest I made on the couch. Was generally very sore and high from the pain meds and just felt like crap. Weeks 3 and 4 were better. Started doing inspections again with a helper. Was able to take OTC pain stuff in the mornings and work a half day. Still generally needed narcotics by the evening/night, but downgraded to Hydrocodine. Also started PT around week 3 IIRC, primarily range of motion stuff, very painful at first, but critically important. My range of motion improved really well and really fast. Dr still restricted any strength use or PT until 12 weeks, though my PT had me starting really light around 9 or 10 weeks. Found the PT to be much more helpful and connected to my recovery than the doctor (like the Doctor, not a bash on him - they are just removed from the process once you are repaired.)
Through out the recovery my worst fear was reinjury or messing it up. Tripped and fell once around 6 weeks and landed on that shoulder, of course, hurt like hell and scared the **** out me, but didn't mess it up. PT later told me the thing that would mess it up would be grabbing something and having the arm jerked out/up/away.
The better part probably outweighed the worse part.
Many people warned of trouble sleeping. I had not been sleeping well because of the pain for 6 months, so figured it could not get worse. Many recommended a recliner, I didn't have one, but would have gotten one if needed. I found that I slept fine on the opposite side with the big stabilizer sling that held the arm up and pretty immobile. Slept on the couch for the first 10 days or so then moved back to the bed. Thankfully sleep was never an issue.
I want to say I wore the padded/braced sling for 3 or 4 weeks. May have been around 2 until the first follow up. At that point he allowed just having the sling without the pad. I know I still used the braced one for sleeping for at least a month. Doc also allowed that I could removed the sling at home and "use" the arm carefully in a limited manner. I did that extensively. Again, always a little worried about reinjury, because I wasn't supposed to do anything that strained it. Kind of hard to judge. I think that using it as much as I comfortably could helped speed recovery. I was told I was way ahead of the curve on recovery, but I am no athlete nor think I did anything special. You gradually just move out of the sling around the time of the second follow-up. Though I still wore it at times.
By around 12 weeks the strength restriction was removed and PT started working on strengthening. Pain was much better. Only really noticeable when pushing the range of motion limits. I was able to inspection houses alone by week 5 so I was using the arm a little more than I should have, but without problems. It gradually improved until I would say I didn't think about it by week 12 or so. By 4 months felt basically normal with just a bit of range of motion limits. Now at 9 months I would say I am 98%. Only remaining slight discomfort is arm behind the back bending hand up between the shoulder blades-which was always the hardest movement.
Tips from my experience:
Don't mess with buying the shoulder surgery shirts. I did. Think I only wore it the day of surgery. While putting on a loose t-shirt could hurt if you did it the regular way, figuring our how to get it on and still not raise that arm is easy.
Buy a second sling. I actually had two different brands and found I liked them for different things. I was sent home in a Breg ARC 2.0 with a metal brace thing. I liked that for the initial few weeks and the whole time for sleeping. The metal brace really helped hold the arm in place for sleeping. I purchased a DonJoy Braces UltraSling PRO Shoulder Immobilizer & Rotator Cuff Injury Sling. It had a pillow and a different arrangement over your shoulder. As I got more mobile I like it better when active. Once the pillow/brace was removed, they were pretty much the same, though I liked the shoulder arrangement of the Donjoy best.
Be prepared to have a recliner or wedge type thing for resting and sleeping initially. I bought a shoulder recovery wedge "system" on Amazon to arrange on my sectional couch. In the end< I really only used one of the wedges and a bunch of pillows. You'll find what is comfortable.
Buy a couple Shoulder surgery pillows. I have two different brands from amazon. They were slightly different, but I used both. One for in bed and one on the couch. They were really helpful. Used them pretty much all the time once out of the sling. You could use a regular pillow, but these were great. Wife made fun of me that it was like my stuffed animal that I hauled around.
Get out of the sling and use the arm, within your restrictions, as much as you can. I think this really helped.
Find a good PT and just go. I set it up for first thing in the morning MWF and went until they said I could not come anymore. Figured it made me go and do the work. Could have done most of it myself, but that was just easier. Would be hard to do the range of motion torture yourself and that is probably the most important thing.
Cant think of anything else offhand. Like I said, it sucks at first, it hurts more than you expect at first. Don't be afraid to take your pain pills. There is nothing gained by being tough, you will ween off naturally and truly dislike them by that time. In a relatively short amount of time you will feel much better. I am very glad I got mine fixed after putting up it for months while I debated.
