Anterior shoulder dislocation recovery process

Have you tried taking a week off of physical therapy? The PT religiously part could be the problem.

Hi EBee,

In going into this operation, I saw a sports physician who sent me to the shoulder surgeon. The timeline given by the surgeon and that given by the sports physician are off by 6 months.

The surgeon said in 4-6 months I'd be climbing, etc, he has patients who play tennis after 4 months. The sports physician said "you will feel normal again after ONE YEAR".

First of all: I'd talk to the surgeon who worked on your shoulder about the pain. I think she or he is the best qualified person to assess how you are progressing.

I am now 4 months into the recovery, and I do not even dare think of climbing in the next 2-3 months. I have respectable pain at max ROM, I carried furniture around and was very sore, and I'm doing all the PT religiously.

Take it easy, talk to the doctor and give yourself the time to heal. If some people are blessed with incredible bodies that heal very fast, we shouldn't destroy ours in trying to imitate their feats. Good for them, we all have our time-frames and the goal is to enjoy the outdoors and our hobbies.

hey guys,

Im about 5 months out from surgery and am progressing along the recovery timeline reasonably well. I have heard a variety of timelines to get back into climbing, and the doctors and surgeons i have spoken to really have no idea as they don't have a strong understanding of the physicality of the sport. I have zero desire to get back into even light climbing for at least another couple months - im barely at full passive ROM at the moment and about 30 degrees off active ROM when doing PT.

Ebee, I never experienced much pain throughout the whole recovery process beyond the first couple weeks. PT ROM work can be painful but its more of an aching pain than acute pain. I have had a couple bouts of strange soreness and have taken time off of PT, which I think has been very beneficial. Recovery for me has not been linear or continuous but more of a step change progression and I think the rest times have contributed a lot to the jumps in ROM and strength. Try to take a couple days off to let the shoulder relax and heal.

NateGfunk wrote:Recovery for me has not been linear or continuous but more of a step change progression and I think the rest times have contributed a lot to the jumps in ROM and strength. Try to take a couple days off to let the shoulder relax and heal.

This matches my recovery experience incredibly well. I say take a whole week off. What worked for me or Nate won't work for everyone but you are talking about a recovery ranging from 4 months to the rest of your life, a week off won't hurt but you may find it is exactly what you need. Listen to your body.

Thanks for the replies all. I'll try taking some time off from the PT exercises and hopefully i'll have some improvement in the pain!

Hi all,

I hope your shoulders are recovering well.

I actually went to the local climbing gym for the first time since the operation. I've been freed by the surgeons to swim, lift weights: he said only a new trauma can cause problems at this point (6-months).

It hurts less than before the operation, so, in that aspect, it's already a success.

It still feels weird and I'm terrified of putting any load on it. But weight-lifting helps a lot to regain confidence and realize "yeah, I have a shoulder". The surgeon said "you'll only feel 100% 12 months after the procedure, but you're free to use it now with discomfort".

But I will take super easy, nothing above 5C for the next two months. I thought you guys would be happy with some encouragement. So far it's promising.

I'm just starting my 4th week post op after a Latarjet procedure to tighten up a torn labrum/repair a Hills-Sachs lesion. (history of anterior dislocations/instability) This thread is super cool in terms of gathering information specific to climbers recovering from shoulder surgery. Keep posting! Especially if you're healthy and climbing again. (If so, I'd be fascinated to hear at what grade and what that is relative to where you were pre-op) I'm just starting to ween off the sling, am totally pain free at rest, and am working on beginning the process to regain passive ROM.

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late reply! I forgot about the thread for a while.

Its been almost 9 months post op and things are progressing nicely. I have mostly been doing self PT and stretching work since august, and my strength has started to return slowly. I have led in the gym twice, but still was really apprehensive and dont feel like im ready to return to climbing yet. Been aid climbing in the valley though! Did Washington column in a day a month ago and am gunnin for the Nose over tgiving. Mostly been following stronger buddies but leading aid is not so taxing on the shoulder right now. There is hope yet for us.

Other than stretching and PT band stuff I have started to lift. Lots of rows and deadlifts and some weight-removed pullups, but Im still very hesitant to do pullups and pushups. Running has helped too to loosen up a very stiff and very dormant body.

Keep the updates coming! im psyched that there seems to be a pretty bright light at the end of this long tunnel...

So I learned an useful lesson over the summer that's probably worth sharing (the tl;dr version is to keep working out the shoulder even after really getting back into climbing again). Since my recovery went well, I decided I need to get better at crack climbing - because of the instability before I never really got good at it because I found it always ended up needing bad/sketchy shoulder positioning. So naturally this was the thing to learn.

While struggling up the crux of blind faith I put my repaired shoulder in a strenuous thumbs-down jam (yes, I recall specifically warning about that a couple of posts ago), and lo and behold I felt something in the shoulder move in a way that it shouldn't. I instinctively let go and went for a good ride (very safe place to whip from), but I had so much adrenaline in me that I couldn't really tell what had happened - I couldn't tell if it had popped out or something else happened (though it wasn't out after and I never felt it pop back in)... There was notable no impairment after that, but it ended up really sore. I left traveling (non climbing-related) later that week and got an mri when I got back 3 weeks later. I'd stopped climbing and spent the whole time thinking I'd blown the surgery and was screwed, and the soreness never went away to keep reminding me. After weeks of sweating bullets, it turned out when I finally saw the surgeon after the mri that there was no discernible damage to the labrum and no rotator cuff tears, but also no clear indication of what did happen...

I left the doctor's with the strong recommendation that I start working out the shoulder again (overall shoulder strength as well as rotator cuff exercises), which I had stopped doing after I started climbing hard again with the assumption that regular gym sessions would be enough to cover that. I now also lift regularly and I've worked back into climbing hard again. I've had no further problems or signs of instability. The one notable observation I've had is that while the soreness still hasn't gone away entirely and I still don't know what I did, lifting weights actually makes it feel better in the short term, and it's helped my climbing too (though my lead head is still recovering). I hope this helps someone not learn things the hard way...

I also got cleared by my doctor recently to return climbing. It's been a bit over 6 months since surgery. The shoulder is still kind of stiff in all directions, but doesn't get in the way. The doctor said it will continue to loosen up and this is expected.

I've been bouldering in the gym a couple of grades below what I used to, but I attribute most of that to not climbing for 10 months. Having been injured so many times in the last 4 years, it's really not too hard to get back to your old climbing ability. It'll take about a month to get finger strength, and the innate ability to move doesn't disappear.

That said, I'm not planning on climbing much harder than where I'm at right now because I want to make sure I build up strength. I'm pretty picky about what I'm going to climb and will jump off of anything that will put my shoulder in a weird position or far away from my body.

I was working solely with bands up until the 5 month mark, but began using weights to get stronger and it seems like it's helped a lot. I can do pullups and pushups, just not that many. Every week I get a little bit more comfortable with adding more reps/weight.

Definitely, the worst part of this process was deciding whether or not to get surgery, and then the first 2 months after the operation. Once the shoulder starts moving again, it gets much better.

Hi everyone,

I am not a climber, but I must say I am very impressed by all of you who do that sport. I am a 45 year old dad who thought it would be a good idea to ride his son's skateboard...NOT! I ended up with a Bankart Lesion and am being advised that I should opt to go the nonsurgical route. Even only a week and a half, I am feeling good about my day to day recovery. My biggest concern is the axial nerve damage cause shoulder numbness and lack of response from my deltoid muscle. I can't raise my arm over my head unless I use alternate muscles which results in an awkward body lean as I do so. I was told that it should return over time, but I wanted to hear it first hand from those of you who have gone through the healing process. What was your experience like with the peripheral nerve damage? How long and what extent of recovery did you have? Thanks!

Hi John,
I think all dislocations are different, so my experience might not be completely relevant to yours, but I'll share anyway. I've experienced chronic subluxations since injuring my shoulder in high school ten years ago. Additionally, I experienced two minor dislocations. (shoulder went back in on its own after not very long) I've never experienced any numbness or tingling, but there was a lot of soreness and pain and some loss of strength and ROM with all of the subluxations/dislocations. Typically the worse the dislocation, the worse the symptoms. After my second and worst dislocation this past winter, (could barely lift my arm, very sore and painful, but no numbness) I had to put off surgery due to work and, over the course of the Spring and through rest and PT, I recovered about 95% of functionality. It was a very strange feeling getting what felt like a pretty useable joint cut open.

I'd imagine that given time, RICE, and PT your shoulder will return to feeling pretty normal. There are a lot of people out there with very functional shoulders with torn labrums. I consulted with two surgeons, talked to a a friend who's a PT, and a friend who's in residency and they all pretty much said the same thing: I should get surgery, but only because of my work/lifestyle puts me at greater risk of future dislocations and amplifies the consequences of those dislocations. And my experience bore that out. Even after my worst dislocation, I eventually returned to feeling pretty normal. I was just concerned about reinjury. If you're a non-climber and aren't avidly playing overhead sports, (football, tennis, baseball) I'd say give it a few weeks, RICE consistently, and listen to the joint: if you feel pain or anything weird, stop using it and don't use it that way again until it's healed more. Hope that helps and that you heal quickly.

EBee - I had the same surgery. I was also painful to 6 months with religious PT, and could not even consider climbing at that point due to the pain. Took me 9 months to get back to climbing. 12 months before I felt confident and full strength. I was a healthy 22 y/o at the time.

I'm approx. 30 months out, and feel stronger than ever. Shoulder is not bothering me at all. Stick with PT, be patient, it will all come together.

So, I'm a few days shy of 3 months post-op and figured I'd share where things are at. ROM is almost entirely back and there's little to no pain in my shoulder unless I misuse it or search out the 5% ROM that it's particularly weak in. I've started strength training (no overhead) to regain scapular muscle mass and it's been going really well.

On thing I've noticed is a slight disparity between the surgeon's recovery timeline and the advice of my PT. Surgeon says no skiing until 4 months post-op. My PT said that their timeline is very conservative and their calculations include a lot of worst-case scenarios. She said that as long as I'm symptom free while skiing and don't take a bad fall, there isn't a problem with it. In light of that, I've started resort skiing and ski touring conservatively and I feel like the gain in mental health from finally having an outlet is well worth the risk. (knock on wood)

Super psyched that things feel like they're progressing well and am optimistically hoping to dip my toe into climbing later this month...

I'm now past the four month mark. A week prior to four months out, I reintroduced climbing. (easy TRing in the gym and on ice) Results were mixed. I'm encouraged by the useability of the joint. While it's certainly weaker than it was, it's better than I worried it would be at this point. The flip side is that I'm a lot weaker than I was. (not really surprising) I haven't really pushed it, so am unsure exactly what my limit is right now, but my endurance is fairly limited and both power and grip strength have fallen dramatically. Fingers are crossed that they'll come back faster this time around.

I'm a week or two out from going under the knife. I have a Superior Labrum Tear that the doc suggested I get repaired considering that I rock climb and weight train. He said that it would be three weeks in a sling and four months before I could try climbing again. Anyone else have a similar injury? My condition doesn't seem as major as some of you on this thread (I've never dislocated it, and my other shoulder areas, like the rotator cuff, are all fine), but still wondering if I can expect to be back to 100% by the fall season.

Thanks,
Michael

I just passed the six month mark which is when the surgeon told me I'd have an unrestricted return to climbing. That's about where I'm at now. I'm able to push myself to my maximum without really worrying about how the shoulder will take it and it's recovering normally workout to workout. At this point I'm certainly weaker than I was 6 months ago. I can't say for sure because I'm not able to climb similar routes, but I'd guess that I'm ~80% of where I was. Finger strength feels relatively normal, but power and power endurance are both lacking.

One note is that it might be worth getting a second opinion if all you have is a torn labrum. I know a lot of very strong/accomplished climbers who still send despite torn labrums... Obviously I don't have all the facts, but it's definitely something to consider before listening to one surgeon's advice. ("when all you have is a hammer...")

Hi Michael,

Only your doctor really knows what he evaluated. I had a superior labrum tear in 2004, and I rehabbed it conservatively, and climbed, lifted and swam hard for over a decade until I finally re-injured the same shoulder. Before the second injury, the function of the shoulder was fine and all doctors I spoke to (and personal friends who are surgeons) said the operation was not recommended. They all stressed the importance of the clinical presentation, not simply the MRI finding.

The second time around I needed the shoulder. Interestingly, my other (left) shoulder also has a labrum tear, but it is absolutely asymptomatic.

Recovery was tricky: I see people posting 5-month recoveries around here. Again, my "friend-surgeons" warned me: "it will take a whole year to feel 'normal' again". I didn't believe them, I thought of Manny Pacquiao getting the same operation at the time I was getting it, and he was predicted to be away for 9 months.

Now, one year after the operation, I can tell you: it's better than ever.

But in the 6-9 months period after it, I did not feel confident. It's just weird, there are some proprioception glitches that need time.

I started re-using the shoulder this winter to ice climb: the main difficulty was placing the ice screws holding the ice-axe with the operated arm. All little motions and instabilities terrified me, like my shoulder was this baby about to collapse.

If you get it now, you will be rehabbing in the fall. Fast-rehab is not really a thing, unless you're a pro sport who gets pushed back into the game at the expense of your long-term health. Take it easy, do whatever is best for you, and enjoy the climbs and the lifting.

Thanks for the replies, guys. My shoulder has felt off since October, despite a lot of rest. I tried hitting up the gym last week and I swear I felt it wiggle in the socket. I totally get that I'm not going to be climbing hard this year, but am hoping that I can get on some moderate+ stuff by the fall. It seems like the smart thing to do, especially since I'm not really climbing at all right now because it feels so weird. Wish me luck!

Michael G wrote:Thanks for the replies, guys. My shoulder has felt off since October, despite a lot of rest. I tried hitting up the gym last week and I swear I felt it wiggle in the socket. I totally get that I'm not going to be climbing hard this year, but am hoping that I can get on some moderate+ stuff by the fall. It seems like the smart thing to do, especially since I'm not really climbing at all right now because it feels so weird. Wish me luck!

Hi Michael,

I think your doctor made the correct evaluation then. If it's unstable and you are getting this apprehension from lifting, that is a lot more "controlled" that some of the odd ways we use our arms when climbing, maybe the surgery is the way to go.

To my understanding, the outcome of the operation depends on the severity of the injury, the quality of the procedure and the rehab. In my case, I was borderline "bad outcome". But there was enough tissues to re-build a good labrum and attach the supra spinal ligament. They allowed me watch the whole thing on the screen and explained all the lesions being fixed).

It's been one year now....and the operated arm now feels more stable than the other side.