Shoulder surgery

[Robert Jones]

I have had a mild torn rotator for 20+years. I can play tennis without a lot of pain but after like 5 sets I do get some good post game soreness hours later.

A friend of mine is a radiologist and told me to leave it alone as its not completely broken.

Just wondering if anyone here has had shoulder surgery and how if affected their tennis game.

[netman]

Had impingement syndrome. Surgery was done arthoscopically (sp?). Surgeon removed some of the end of my collarbone and cleaned up a bunch of scar tissue. Started rehab 24 hours after surgery. Followed it religiously and played basketball 5 weeks later, tennis 4 months after surgery. I can honestly say it added 10 mph to my serve and gave back the flexibility I had as a 20 year old.

Not sure about rotator cuff surgery since it is a soft tissue procedure. It will probably require longer rehab and recovery, and soft tissue recovery can be tricky. If you do it, try and have it done arthoscopically, since in most cases its the collateral tissue damage that slows recovery, not the actually repair.

Good luck
Ken

Don't get surgery. Do your rotator cuff exercises and strengthen the muscle for 2 or 3 months while minimizing overhead motions (yes, your serve will go to the dogs, but it will come back). After you've strengthened the rotator cuff, go back to real tennis (not stopping the rotator cuff exercises which should by then be a permanent fixture in your life - as long as you want to play tennis). If that doesn't work, you're probably going to have to go under the knife.

[dozu]

if it's not broken, don't fix it... you can probably play well with: 1, strengthening your shoulder with weight excercise. 2, switch to arm/shoulder friendly equipment, i.e. heavy, head-light, flexible racket with soft string at low tension... the game may suffer for a while, but it's worth it...3, alter the mechanic of your strokes to favor the injury, I had to go more side-arm on my serve to reduce the stress on my shoulder. 4, stretching excercises to keep the joints flexible.

[vin]

I agree with zaxxon.

I had similar shoulder surgery to a rotator cuff repair. While it will be a good 4-6 months before you're playing aggressive tennis, your shoulder very well may feel like new. However, PT is a *****. Lots of painful stretching, especially if you develop frozen shoulder as I did from being in a sling for 6 weeks.

I'd find out if you are at higher risk for a complete tear based on your partial tear. I'd imagine your chance of success for surgery is much higher for a partial tear than a full one.

Assuming you've seen orthopedists, what do they say?

Vin