Hello Julian,

My husband had shoulder repair 11/25/24 and is still in quite a bit of pain/discomfort and the doctor told him 6 months to a year for total recovery. He had two fairly good size tears & a cyst. He's 66 and very physical, but more with at-home construction/landscape projects rather than sport functions. The pain prior to surgery got to the point he couldn't do the projects he wanted to do without a lot of pain, so after trying PT at the recommendation of the doctor (& I'm sure insurance) he had the surgery. His has not been a good recovery and the pain much worse that he envisioned. Sleeping has been awful for him and for the first 12 weeks he slept sitting up or slightly reclined with 6 pillows around/under him. Post surgery PT (6 weeks after) was pretty uncomfortable & after 4 weeks of that, the therapist told him he should not be in the amount of pain he was experiencing and before he came back again, he needed to go back to the surgeon for re-evaluation. Doctor ordered an MRI with contrast only to find there were two more smaller tears and osteoarthritis with didn't show up on the first MRI (without contrast). Not sure why they didn't do the first MRI with contrast since it obviously gave better information. Doctor said he didn't feel that doing another surgery would be beneficial but when we questioned him about the osteoarthritis as well, he said he could do a reverse shoulder replacement but although they have had much success with that procedure, my husband would only be able to lift 5 lbs for the rest of his life! Obviously, my husband was not happy to hear that. Regular shoulder replacement didn't seem to be an option due to the multiple tears in the rotator cuff. So, doctor suggested that he go back to PT but with a different facility that his other patients have had good results with. So, that it what he is doing at this time. The therapist did ask my husband if he'd considered getting a second opinion. We decided he would give 8 weeks of PT a try to see if there was any improvement, but if not, he will seek a second opinion.
My husband said he wished he'd never gotten the surgery and dealt with the pain longer. Eventually he knows he would have needed the surgery, but it would have been after all the "projects" were done. (If there is such a thing as ever being done with projects.)
Doctor said as far as paint and recovery goes with surgeries, shoulders are worst, then knees, then back. I've had both knees replaced (has some trouble/setback with my left one) but after seeing what my husband is going through, I'd 100% agree with his comment. My husband has had two back surgeries and said they were mild compared to what he's experiencing now. A full year or longer will be his recovery time.
Best wishes to you.