How much time is usually lapsed between diagnosis and surgery. There seems to be a lot of controversy on the neccessity of a lot of shoulder surgeries. I have read where many doctors feel not enough times is given for a problem to resolve itself. It seems like everytime I decide to finally get my shoulder fixed it will resolve itself again for another year or two or until I throw it out again.
I strained my shoulder playing volleyball. But, what happened was the swelling was pushing an a bone spur. The spur kept aggravating it and the pain would not go away.
I went to PT for a year. No help. No help at all. Got an MRI, yep, bone spur. Had orthoscopic surgery to remove the bur outpatient and I was right as rain in a week.
Pisses me off a bit.
In 2006, I went to a sports medicine doctor to see if pain in my right shoulder (which had been getting worse for years) was due to rotator cuff problems. With some simple tests (pressing my arm at various angles while I attempted to resist), the doc demonstrated that I was weaker than I had realized - I’d been subconsciously compensating.
He gave me some simple exercises designed to strengthen the rotator cuff, which I did for three months, with no improvement. He then gave me a cortisone and blood injection, which made the pain go away temporarily, but it was back within a month. He then ordered an MRI, which showed a tear big enough to require surgery.
In 2007, I got surgery to repair my right rotator cuff. After several months recovering, I was pain-free and the strength in my right shoulder had returned to what it hadn’t been for decades. Eight years later, it’s still fine.
Both the sports doc and the surgeon warned me that based on the anatomical structure of my right shoulder (as seen in the MRI) and the fact that I lifted weights, I was likely to experience similar problems in my left shoulder eventually.
They were right.
In 2011, I went back to the sports doc to report similar pain in my left shoulder. He ordered an MRI, which showed a tear and some arthritis. The doc was concerned that my pain might be due to the arthritis and not the rotator cuff tear, so he hesitated to refer me to the surgeon, preferring to manage the problem with cortisone/blood injections. Over the next few years, we ruled out the arthritis as the cause of the pain. And while the cortisone/blood treatments worked a little better than they had on my right shoulder, it was only temporary. So in January, the sports doc referred me to the surgeon.
Last month, the surgeon repaired the tear in my left rotator cuff (and, as had been done in 2007 on the right shoulder, shaved off a bone hook that had caused the tear). The recovery is going fine: the surgeons have improved their techniques considerably, which has dramatically shortened recovery time. In 2007, I was in an arm sling for a month; this time, it was a week.
When I first spoke to the surgeon about my left shoulder this year, I recounted my experiences with the less-invasive measures taken by the sports doc over the last few years. The surgeon said that he could have told me from one look at the MRI that less invasive therapies wouldn’t have helped.
If anything, the sports doc I’ve been going to since 2006 has been overly cautious about recommending shoulder surgery, which is fine with me.
When I was in the Army they made me wait two years to have the shoulder surgery I needed after the initial accident, I finally had Arthroscopic surgery to repair an anterior tear in my labrum and to debride scar tissue from my rotator cuff, at first everything seemed to tighten up and then it just seemed to loosen up again over time and I have had dislocations since then and have chronic subluxation. The surgeon suggested the outcome would have been better if they had done the surgery earlier as was planned but on the day of scheduled original surgery my company commander told me he wouldn’t sign the papers. My shoulder still bothers me all the time and eventually I may have a shoulder study done and give an open shoulder surgery a try.
It took 14 years for me to get a Bankart repair I needed after a serious accident. I wish I had been able to get it done sooner but there was no particularly negative outcomes from waiting that long - other than the numerous hospital visits due to throwing it out of joint and needing a reduction.
I believe age is a factor too, I seem to recall reading a study saying that younger people who had dislocated and damaged their shoulder were better off having surgery and also soon after the injury, I think older people in the middle age group who have a dislocation are less likely to have all the chronic issues.
Ive used a manual wheelchair exclusively for the past 15 years. Due to the fact that I had extremely flexible, open shoulders prior to my car accident, what once was nothing but a benefit for the activities and sports I engaged in (gymnastics), suddenly because a serious liability for injury. And sure enough, with in three or four months I began to get tears in my right rotator cuff.
As this became worse, I depended more on my left side, arm and hand to carry out tasks that i did before I messed up my right shoulder. I mean, both shoulders and arms still got used, but it just became natural for me to lead with my left side and lift more on that side and just favor it over all.
Well, all this really meant, big picture, is that both arms and shoulders were doing the same amount of overall work, and what ended up happening? 
Yep, my left shoulder and rotator cuffs began to tear as well. So I had two fucked up shoulders and i.was a very active athlete-even then-who could not imagine becoming sedentary.
But things just worsened and worsened. I became unable to work out in anything but the easiest and slowest and mind numbing of ways. I was in multiple times a week pt. Nothing , helps. It got to the point where I was convinced i needed surgery on my shoulder(s), they dont opreate on both at the same time. After researching and finding this incredibly highly recommed surgeon who has performed such surgeries onther actual paraplegics, i decided to make an appointment,.
Now keepin mind, even side.from the “athlete’s fear” of shoulder surgery and it not working and making them worse, I have that fear plus a much larger, more immediate concern. And that would be my recovery time and , just how iwpuld exist thru this period. You have to keep in mind, my two arms serve the functions of all fours of my limbs. So when even one of those two functioning limbs becomng temporarily ‘out of service’, it basically means no independent movements other than maybe spinning around in circles in your wheelchair: ). Things that most people would and dont ever, ever think about are things that are daily struggles for many.
That’s rough Ambivalid, occasionally I’ll see people who use wheelchairs that just have these gigantic muscular arms, but I guess it’s easy to forget all the wear and tear that must come from using arms for everything, hope it works out for you.
I should have added: I never did get my shoulders operated on and i thank Jeebus for that decision. My shoulders are MUCH better now, 9-10 years later than they were when I was on the brink on going under the knife. Im much better educated and committed to.building up the right musculature ,both surrounding and opposing to themuscles over used and under used by operated a chair. The benefits are extremely beneficial, from a quality of life perspective.
Well u posted this right before the posr below you. But in my case, it was my natural body structure that i was born with prior to getting into and accident and becoming disabled. And dont get , me wrong,i have some prettydecent arms myself. 
but the dont come without pain. Haha!
I should have added: I never did get my shoulders operated on and i thank Jeebus for that decision. My shoulders are MUCH better now, 9-10 years later than they were when I was on the brink on going under the knife. Im much better educated and committed to.building up the right musculature ,both surrounding and opposing to themuscles over used and under used by operated a chair. The benefits are extremely beneficial, from a quality of life perspective.
Sorry to be slightly off-topic, but I am certain there is a world-class tongue-twister to be made out of the phrase “soldier’s shoulder surgery.”
Hmm…Operating on shoulders on the battlefield is tricky. So - should shoulder surgeons shoulder soldiers’ shoulder surgery? Or something like that.
The Surgeon suggested to the Specialist that shoulder surgery should seriously stop the soldier’s shoulder subluxations.
Something like that?
I went about a year between my injury and my shoulder surgery (posterior Bankart repair). About 3 or 4 months of that was PT and meeting with various doctors and the rest of that was, more or less, me putting it off.
While the pre-op PT did fix one of the problems (impingement) ultimately I did have a tear and physical therapy wasn’t going to fix it. If I had gone to the shoulder doc first, instead of my GP and didn’t have any personal issues holding me back, I’ll bet between the scheduling and imaging and various appointments, and probably a cortisone shot in there somewhere, I probably could have been under the knife within 2 months.
My doc mentioned there’s no real issues, in the short term. It might sublux, the labrum might tear more and all that means is more anchors but the recovery is the same, but he said that if you just never fix it you can end up with arthritis.
It was only a couple of weeks for me. My whatever (supraspinatus tendon?) was totally torn though making it impossible for me to lift my arm. I don’t think that would ever have repaired itself. It was never discussed.
What do you mean by “Throwing your shoulder out”? Dislocating it?. “Throwing” something out (like your back) is often a generic term for some sort of acute injury. My shoulder hurt when I did certain things (seated overhead presses, for example). The doc said I had an impingement and to stop doing those things, so I did. It worked for a couple of years and the pain returned (racquetball-induced). Doc now says “severe arthritis at AC joint”. A cortisone shot helped for about 9 months but the next one did nothing. I had the surgery about 10 weeks ago and wish I would have done it sooner. The recovery was quick - I was out of work for two weeks but could have returned sooner if I had a driver. Rehab was quick and I am going try r-ball again in about two weeks. The who thing was a non-event.