RE: Post surgical shoulder rehab advice

Former Member — Wed, 22 May 2002 16:18:36 GMT

You might want to contact the Kerlan-Jobe Clinic (they do ALOT of shoulders) and see if you can get some information there. They might have a Physical Therapy department that is more used to dealing with athletes (they do do baseball players) and could give you some hand-outs of suggestions. One personal suggestion--you might want to give up the butterfly stroke. Having been through a total of 6 shoulder surgeries (4 on just the left side) the LAST stroke any of my surgeons and/or doctors wanted me to do was butterfly. I too had a stretched out shoulder (I never did do butterfly) and it was "shrunk to fit" with a thermal assisted capsular shift about 4 years ago. The danger is STILL in stretching out the surgical repair if you go at it too hard. While you are 6-months into recovery--I think you're going to find with the amount of surgery done in one session on your shoulder---6 months is a bit early to be making a full comeback. Take it easy and just give it some time. BUT by all means--keep up with the exercises!!!!! I'm back in PT after falling and perhaps tearing some of the rotator cuff--the exercises are boring but you now have to make a life-long "habit" of doing them.