Avoiding shoulder surgery for now ...

Well as some know out there it has been a rough month or so for me recovering from a bicycling accident. I had a lot of injuries.

I am STILL dealing with the skin wounds (I lost a few major sections of skin and had to do "Wound therapy").

The main bruises and sprains seem recovered - yay (I sprained ligaments on each side of the right collarbone, and has some pretty big bruises on my arm, hip and leg).

I got a bunch of Xrays that showed no breaks - yay. They did show a likely old torn UCL which is not that surprising since I was a pitcher but it would have been good to know that back in the day.

Alas, my right shoulder has been in a world of hurt since then though getting a little better. And two weeks ago I got an MRI on my shoulder and when the results came back they were a bit stressful. The results indicated I had a SLAP tear in my labrum and a partial tear of my rotator cuff.

My doctor said I should make an appointment to discuss the MRI so I did. I was really hoping to avoid surgery of any kind. And thankfully I found this amazing lecture / talk from Dr. Brian Feeley at UCSF.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm5xmTFYdZ0

Basically, in it he discusses some key issues including that a TON of people my age have partially torn rotator cuffs and SLAP tears in the labrum without any obvious causes or symptoms. He also mentioned briefly how some of the "repairs" of these issues to not help with symptoms people have. And this led me further down the path of not being convinced that I needed surgery.

So then I met with my doctor who basically was going down the same path of "I think surgery is not necessarily the right option" . So the good news is - I am avoiding surgery. The not as good news is - I will be doing a LOT of physical therapy to see if I can improve the utility of my messed up R shoulder.