I've had three left shoulder surgeries. The first was to repair the supraspinatus(sp) tendon and the second was to reclean it out and tighten everything up. Everything was fine after those two surgeries for almost 2 years. Now i just had a 3rd surgery one month ago. The doctor arthoscopic with anterior capsulectomy, open rotator cuff repair with two swivel lock suture anchors foe the thickness tear, distal clavical repair, and instillation of palet rich plasma with fat graft to the rotator cuff. I know there is to be pain and discomfort after surgery, but i am getting pain as if someone is taking a knife and just digging into my shoulder which only started 4 days ago and it comes and goes. The next thing is my hand was locking up where i couldn't move it two to three times a day. As of the last two weeks it has been locking up 6 or 7 times a day. I thought the locking up would decrease and not increase. I am still in a sling and start therapy in two weeks which will be a month and a half after surgery. I'm just not sure about the knife sharp pain the locking and freezing up of the hand and fingers doing it more now then after surgery. Any suggestions or ideas?
The Following User Says Thank You to renegaderob18 For This Useful Post: YukonHal (02-16-2012)
Sounds like perhaps a nerve injury which is healing? They do cut small nerves in surgery and can easily injure a major nerve with all they did. when nerves reconnect, they often announce their healing by hurting like he!! and that would also explain why your hand might be freezing up too.
But if it continues, I'd look into your neck as a possible cause. I hang out on the Spinal Cord Disorders board as I had surgery on both shoulders only to find out most of my pain was from my neck and that needed surgery too. And I just talked to someone else who has the same problem. It happens a lot. You can't tell the difference between neck and shoulder problems a lot of the time. Only a neck MRI will tell you if it's truly shoulder or neck. There is no law(unfortunately) that says you can't have problems in both places and many times, you do.
I hope it's just the nerves healing but don't rule out your neck as a possibility.
The thing is would it be coming from the neck if it was never a problem before the shoulder surgery? My next problem is everytime i have an MRI on my neck or shoulder it shows nothing or very little meaning not enough for surgery. The reason the doc did surgery is cause he saw small things and therapy and rest did not help. The MRI showed no tear, but he thought there might be. I have had 3 shoulder MRI'S and 5 neck ones and like i said they barely show anything until they go in. Any ideas?
