Me and my chronically unstable shoulder

December 12 th It's been a while since my last update - Life happened and I am actually writing from California now :) I am now almost exactly 8 months after my Latarjet surgery and I am very happy with the results so far. I was using my arm normally in daily activities by the eighth week post surgery and steadily kept on improving. In total I went to 30 sessions of physical therapy - usually twice a week - and we mainly worked on increasing range of movement in the first few weeks but added strength exercises in the final 3-4 weeks. I've had most trouble with external and internal rotation. At some point we focused a lot on improving external rotation - which is not easy, not fun and requires some true dedication - but forgot about internal rotation. At my final exam with my surgeon he also noted that my internal rotation could be slightly better but everything else was well. So in the remaining weeks and until now I've worked on increasing my internal rotation and I...

May 14 th I am eight weeks post Latarjet surgery now and the recovery process seems to be going well. Everything so far has progressed according to plan. I continued to do passive shoulder movement exercises with therapists and at home until the 5 th week which is when we started assisted movements. After the sixth week, physical therapy progressed to more active movements and there were no movement restrictions anymore. We pushed the limit day by day; the main guidance was pain and when I felt that we reached the maximum of what was possible. It is really important to never do things that are painful. Always stop when it starts to hurt. So, I am now eight weeks in and I am able to use my right arm almost normally in my daily activities. Step by step I started brushing my teeth again with the right hand, cleaning dishes, etc. All movements are allowed as long as I don’t feel pain and as long as I am not carrying heavy things. Also, external rotation in high abduction i...

March 16th-March 17th After the first rough night, the next morning started with switching to pills as the primary means of dealing with pain. I was fine with that and didn’t need additional nerve blocks during the day. A nurse helped me to wash in the morning and get out of the surgery outfit. I brought some large tank tops which I would recommend to other patients. During the first few days you will have issues with getting dressed and tank tops simplify that task a lot! My surgeon stepped by shortly after to check on me and answered all my outstanding questions. I felt taken care of well and was reassured that everything went according to plan. After breakfast the nurses recommended to get out of bed a bit and walk around in the station. So, I did walk around the station for a bit but spent most of the morning in bed watching Netflix. Later in the morning the nurses changed the bandage and checked how much blood had gone to through the surgical drain. Since there was not a...

 March 15th, 2018 After getting some hours of not so restful sleep, we turned up at the clinic at around 07:00 AM to check-in. I was walked to my station and room and handed over the surgery clothes. I was told to be ready by 10:00 AM just in case surgery could already start earlier. They offered to give me a pill which would help me to relax and I thankfully took it at around 09:20 after changing into surgery clothes. Pro Tip: Always, always, always change into surgery clothes before taking that pill! I once didn’t and guess what? When they came to take me to surgery I was still in my normal clothes and couldn’t care less to get changed because I was so relaxed and didn’t understand why everyone else seemed to have a problem with my clothes. The "I don't give a *****" pill At around 10:20 I was picked up and brought to the pre-surgery area to get me ready for anesthesia. After hooking me up to an IV bag, they started to place a nerve catheter in my neck to...

Today I travelled to Munich to have the final two preparation meetings with the surgeon and the anesthetist in the clinic where the surgery will be performed. Those meetings are scheduled to warn you once more of all the potential side effects of surgery and anesthesia. As usual I was quite surprised to learn about all the different things that could go wrong. Who would have thought that one of the complications of a shoulder surgery could be permanent hoarseness? Highlights of those meetings included getting a nice arrow painted onto my right shoulder – just in case – and getting a fancy new orthosis which looks a lot sleeker than the ones I used to have. I also got my final surgery appointment for 11 AM the following day which meant that I had to turn up at the hospital at 7AM.

I arranged appointments with four different shoulder specialists to get different perspectives and to be able to compare their approaches. 3 out of 4 specialist that I saw recommended the Latarjet procedure to treat the instability. 2 out of the 3 were recommending the open Latarjet procedure while one surgeon had specialized in the arthroscopic procedure. The specialists that recommended this procedure also had a lot of experience performing the surgery. This is a key point when you select the surgeon for a Latarjet procedure. Even today in Germany for example, this procedure is not widely used and usually reserved for contact athletes or people with previous surgeries that did not help. This is not something you want to get done by a surgeon next door who takes care of hip replacements, knees, shoulders and whatever comes his/her way. You really want an experienced surgeon that specializes in shoulders and has done the Latarjet procedure many times before. The procedure itself is m...

I decided to write about my experience with the Latarjet procedure because I found it very hard to find information from patients that underwent this (still today) very specific treatment of chronic recurrent shoulder instability. I am 32 years old and live in Frankfurt, Germany. I personally have had a long history of shoulder instability. It all started when I was 17 and dislocated my right shoulder for the first time while playing Badminton in physical education at school. And no, I was not falling… Just performing an overhead strike with a lot of force and there went my shoulder… My teacher was shocked and didn’t know what to do so we called the ambulance who put me into full anesthesia on the spot and repositioned the shoulder. I woke up in the hospital with some pain, but the shoulder seemed to be fine to me. I underwent x-rays and MRI examination and the diagnosis was that the labrum had be torn apart and the doctors suggested to perform an arthroscopic stabilization which is...