After Surgery

Surgery Day & Night:

Shoulder_pain

  • Pain:
    • Try to stay AHEAD of your pain. Usually the first 2 to 3 days after surgery are the most painful...then the pain typically improves significantly.
    • Dr. Brady prescribed you a pain medication - take as directed.
    • If you are able to take ibuprofen, often adding up to 800 mg of ibuprofen every 6 hours can help relieve your pain tremendously. If the prescribed pain medication does not seem to be helping enough then take try the ibuprofen. Pay attention and if you get an upset stomach with the ibuprofen you should stop this medication.
    • ICE should be your best friend!!!
    • ICE your shoulder (or other surgical area) as much as possible over the first 2 to 3 days.
    • Stay away from heat!!! It may feel good for the time it's applied but it will cause inflammation to increase.
  • Sleep:
    • It is usually easiest and most comfortable if you sleep in a recliner chair. Lying flat is typically very uncomfortable after shoulder surgery.
    • Take one or two pain pills before bedtime to help you sleep.
    • Go to sleep with the ICE on your shoulder but don't worry about changing it overnight.

The Next Day:
  • Continue to use ICE.
    Pasted Graphic
  • Gently remove the large surgical bandage. Often it looks terribly bloody but actually this is the arthroscopy fluid mixed with a small amount of blood. Just throw the bandage in the trash.
  • If you feel up to it you can take a shower the day after surgery
  • You do not have to cover the small incisions - Dr. Brady applied some glue type material over the incisions to cover them and this allows you to get it wet in the shower. Do not soak the wound however in a bath or pool.
  • Do not use the arm in the shower...just let in hang there and use the other limb to wash yourself.
  • After the shower just pad the incisions dry and then apply band-aids.
  • Continue to try to stay ahead of the pain by taking the medications if needed. Don't try to tough it out...it's not worth it!
  • Start your gentle home exercise program as instructed in preoperative PT. Go slow and do not hurt yourself

After that:
  • Usually you will have one PT visit just a few days after your surgery. At this visit the therapists will check your incisions, review your home exercises, adjust your sling, and answer any other questions you have.
  • Dr. Brady will typically see you 1 to 2 weeks after your surgery.
  • ALWAYS feel free to call us at any time during this entire process if you have any questions or concerns.
Rehab:
  • The specifics of your rehabilitation depend largely on exactly what Dr. Brady did during the surgery. In general the rehab follows three stages.
    • 1. Gentle home exercises
    • 2. PT to work on your range of motion
    • 3. PT to work on regaining your strength.
  • How quickly you progress through these three stages depends on the extent of your surgery. We do NOT want to go to fast!!! We try to give things every opportunity to heal before we let you try to stress things.
  • Full recovery varies depending on the type of surgery