4 weeks post op

So I am now four weeks postop. Here's where I am at....

- shoulder much more robust to general movement. At home I usually have the sling off - usually only comes on when I am tired or my neck/shoulder is hurting. I do keep it on when I leave the house, as recommended by the surgeon.

- A few days ago I fell over whilst crossing the road. Although my shoulder hurt for that day and following day quite badly, because I was wearing my sling at the time I am very lucky that I could not put my hand out to stop my fall. This means that I did no serious damage to my shoulder.

- my physio says that my range of motion is pretty good for someone at four weeks, but to me it seems like I can't move it at all!

- Am still somewhat limited as to what I can do with my hand. Any attempt to put pressure or strength through my hand/arm just results in pain in my shoulder.

- In terms of exercise, I am now going for at least two walks a day of 30 minutes each. Today I also started a little stationary bike riding for 10 minutes. I desperately want to do some cardio exercise but anything which jolts my shoulder just causes pain for a while afterwards, so I am trying to wait until the six weeks period for tendons to heal is over.

- For shoulder exercises I am doing pendulum swings, shoulder shrugs and walking my fingers up the wall. My physio gave me some more exercises today to do as follows...

- lying on back using my good hand to take my poor arm up towards my ear

- lying on my back with elbows at my side holding a stick in both hands and moving it side to side gently

- lying on my back trying to raise both arms upwards along the floor as if making a snow angel

- trying to place my hands on my back, which in reality means putting them on my bum!

With all of these exercises the physio says I should be just dipping into pain, not working through pain. And I should apply ice to my shoulder after any exercises if it is aching.

My shoulder muscles are also very very tight, and the physio suggested applying heat packs to try and relax the muscles are little. And to try and keep my posture good.

Last weekend I tried sleeping in a normal bed, but I found that I kept rolling onto my shoulder and so I did not sleep much during the night and I woke up with a very painful shoulder. So unfortunately I am back to sleeping on the sofa which I am very fed up with.

Overall I really can't wait for my shoulder to heal, but I know that I have to be patient even if that is very difficult at times.

Posted with Blogsy