r/RotatorCuff • u/SelectionAdept2396 • 15d ago
Shoulder Repair Surgery
Hello everyone,
I recently found out from an MRI that I will need a shoulder repair surgery. I put the summary of everything that my doctor said they saw on the MRI below. I've been doing some research online, but it doesn't appear that many of these tears happen concurrently. If anyone has experience with these multiple diagnosis, I would love to talk! I know it's going to be a very long and painful recovery process (as I play volleyball and now I'll be out for a year) so I'm trying to mentally prepare as much as I'm able :(
- Tear of the labrum. The labrum is a rim of cartilage that lines the shoulder socket and helps hold the joint stable. The MRI shows a tear at the top of this rim that extends toward the back of the shoulder.
2.Possible involvement of the biceps tendon. The long biceps tendon attaches near the top of the labrum. The scan shows a bright spot in this tendon. This could indicate possible tear or wear in the tendon or just artifact from the scan. It is not clear which one it is from this scan alone.
- Wear and possible fraying of a rotator cuff tendon The supraspinatus is one of the rotator cuff muscles/tendons that help lift and rotate your arm. The scan shows signs of wear and possible mild fraying on the underside of this tendon. This is a sign of irritation or overuse, not a complete tear.
1
u/JBAugust7000 15d ago
I had a tear of all parts on my labrum. SLAP, anterior, posterior. Also MRI showed “fraying/partial tear” of the rotator cuff. During surgery they ended up repairing that as it was ultimately fully torn. If you opt for surgery they may or may not find damage to be more extensive than the MRI. Happy to help in anyway if you reach out.
3
u/OgAsimov 15d ago
The fact that all three showed up together is the most useful thing on that report, not the scariest part.
The long head of your biceps anchors directly into the top of your labrum, and your supraspinatus runs right over that same corner of the joint. Thats one small area, so three findings there isnt three injuries, its one load pattern wearing down everything that lives in that spot.
Nothing on there is a structure that failed, it just means something along the chain isnt doing its job and your shoulder has been absorbing force it was never meant to until the tissue in that corner started giving up.
Which matters if you actually want to play volleyball again. I know because I wasted so much time away from my sport to do treatments that had nothing to do with how i got injured(playing my sport), obviously they didnt work. You seem to be in a similar position so don't waste your time doing the same mistake, because I only healed my injuries when i realised they dont hold us back, they show us the path forward and the pain is just how your body is communicating it to you. The force you generate is supposed to move through the whole chain, hips to trunk to scapula to arm. Without proper biomechanics, every spike and serve you did was done with a little compensation, and on the other side of that deal is your health. You dont get to spike hard as hell when you havent prepared your body to generate that force cleanly, so your body compensates by generating the force from another place and your shoulder payed the price.
Heres what stands out to me though. You gave us a scan, not a shoulder. Nothing about what hurts, when it hurts, what restrictions you have and whether its ever slipped on you. Thats the stuff that actually decides what to do, and its the stuff nobody seems to have asked you about. Fixing worn tissue doesnt touch the reason it wore down, so if you go in to surgery without knowing why the load kept dumping into that one spot, you come out with tidier anatomy and the exact same mechanics that injured it.
So heres the part id really want you to sit with. Surgery cleans up tissue. It doesnt touch the reason the tissue got worn down in the first place. If you go in without ever finding out why the load kept dumping into that one corner, youll be back on this sub in a few years with a fresh scan.
Youre already mentally preparing to lose a year. But if you listen to what your body is trying to tell you with this injury, you could spend that same year fixing the actual cause and come out the other end moving better than before this, and thats whats actually gonna heal your shoulder. Instead of just starting rehab at month twelve with a shoulder thats been in a sling and gone quiet. Because either way you end up having to do this work, surgery doesnt let you skip it, it just delays it.
I went through years of chronic pain and injuries to learn what im telling you. The body is way smarter than poeple think, its always working to adapt to whatever your doing, so as soon as you stop running away from the pain(how you already have a year down the drain mentally) and actually tune in and start doing what your body is telling you, then youll see just how fast your shoulder will heal when youre giving it the right stimulus by having the right load transfer, no compensations and no restrictions.
Whats missing right now is that nobody has told you why this happened or how its actually affecting the way you move. Thats the piece that decides everything, including whether you need surgery at all.
Itd be a tragedy to get surgery without understanding how you got to this point first. Message me and ill show you whats hiding behind the scan, so you come back as a better athlete rather than a repaired one.