Shoulder Injury - Labrum Tear

I had a 30% tear of my labrum due to a swimming injury. I was coming into the wall on backstroke and my shoulder popped out right as I was pulling. It's called a Bankart lesion. The labrum is a circular piece of cartilage that lines the shoulder socket and the more that is damaged the easier it is for it to slip out of socket. After I injured it originally, it hurt for a couple months, after which I didn't really have pain, but it felt off, especially when my arm was overhead. I felt like in certain positions I just couldn't trust my shoulder to stay stable. Physical therapy cannot fix a labral tear. It took me 3 years to really figure that out. When I finally went to the doctor, I got an MRI, which is when I figured out what I had done. I got an X-ray but it didn't show anything. Nobody likes to have surgery. I certainly didn't, so I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want to. But, for a labral tear, it's really the only option. I also would like to clear up some misconceptions about shoulder surgery, especially for a labral tear. After the doctor told me I had to get surgery, my mom spread the news to her friends. Many of them told her that the last thing in the world I want is surgery, that they know people that have had surgery and it really messed them up. This is because up until 20 years ago, doctors had a completely different method of treating a labral tear. First of all, they wouldn't do the surgery right away so the tear would get worse and worse until surgery was absolutely imperative. Second of all, the manner in which they did physical therapy afterwards led to only a partial recovery in range of motion. Thankfully, nowadays, the PT and surgical procedure is better. Patients usually end up with a full recovery. The only ones that don't are the ones who try to get back into their sport to soon. If you get surgery, LISTEN TO YOUR PT! I had my surgery 4 weeks ago. This is the recovery process after surgery. You'll be in a sling for 6 weeks. After 4 weeks, the sling isn't as heavy duty. The first 2 days, you are pretty bed-bound. Be prepared to watch movies and have people wait on you. You'll be able to get up to do stuff, but you probably won't really want to due to the pain and such. Physical therapy starts the 2nd week and for the first six weeks, you're working on getting your range of motion back. The PT will stretch you arm a bit for you and you'll do some stretching on your own, along with small things like curling the weight of your arm and light arm circles. To give you an idea of what's going on with the labrum at this point, it takes 4-6 weeks for the labrum to reattach to the bone and another 4-6 weeks for it to get securely fastened onto it. This is why after 6 weeks, you'll get the sling off. Then the exercises start getting a bit harder and a little more weight bearing. From what my PT said, I can get back into a pool without restrictions after 4-6 months. But it'll take 6-9 months to completely recover my strength. Of course a lot of the recovery time depends on your age and your diligence in doing your exercises. If you have any questions, my email is nickswim9@gmail.com Best of luck, Nick

I had a 30% tear of my labrum due to a swimming injury. I was coming into the wall on backstroke and my shoulder popped out right as I was pulling. It's called a Bankart lesion. The labrum is a circular piece of cartilage that lines the shoulder socket and the more that is damaged the easier it is for it to slip out of socket. After I injured it originally, it hurt for a couple months, after which I didn't really have pain, but it felt off, especially when my arm was overhead. I felt like in certain positions I just couldn't trust my shoulder to stay stable. Physical therapy cannot fix a labral tear. It took me 3 years to really figure that out. When I finally went to the doctor, I got an MRI, which is when I figured out what I had done. I got an X-ray but it didn't show anything. Nobody likes to have surgery. I certainly didn't, so I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want to. But, for a labral tear, it's really the only option. I also would like to clear up some misconceptions about shoulder surgery, especially for a labral tear. After the doctor told me I had to get surgery, my mom spread the news to her friends. Many of them told her that the last thing in the world I want is surgery, that they know people that have had surgery and it really messed them up. This is because up until 20 years ago, doctors had a completely different method of treating a labral tear. First of all, they wouldn't do the surgery right away so the tear would get worse and worse until surgery was absolutely imperative. Second of all, the manner in which they did physical therapy afterwards led to only a partial recovery in range of motion. Thankfully, nowadays, the PT and surgical procedure is better. Patients usually end up with a full recovery. The only ones that don't are the ones who try to get back into their sport to soon. If you get surgery, LISTEN TO YOUR PT! I had my surgery 4 weeks ago. This is the recovery process after surgery. You'll be in a sling for 6 weeks. After 4 weeks, the sling isn't as heavy duty. The first 2 days, you are pretty bed-bound. Be prepared to watch movies and have people wait on you. You'll be able to get up to do stuff, but you probably won't really want to due to the pain and such. Physical therapy starts the 2nd week and for the first six weeks, you're working on getting your range of motion back. The PT will stretch you arm a bit for you and you'll do some stretching on your own, along with small things like curling the weight of your arm and light arm circles. To give you an idea of what's going on with the labrum at this point, it takes 4-6 weeks for the labrum to reattach to the bone and another 4-6 weeks for it to get securely fastened onto it. This is why after 6 weeks, you'll get the sling off. Then the exercises start getting a bit harder and a little more weight bearing. From what my PT said, I can get back into a pool without restrictions after 4-6 months. But it'll take 6-9 months to completely recover my strength. Of course a lot of the recovery time depends on your age and your diligence in doing your exercises. If you have any questions, my email is nickswim9@gmail.com Best of luck, Nick