Sunday 28 August 2011

The day after surgery - what's the pain like?

It's 36 hours since surgery, the local anaestetic has worn off, I have a low-dose of paracetamol and tramadol inside me and a noticable ache in the front of my shoulder.

I remember waking up after the procedure and feeling the same pain, in spite of the nerve block injection I'd been given.

"Definitely had a tenodesis", I thought. Because this was an exploratoy operation, neither I nor the surgeon know exactly what he'd do. I ended up with a rotator cuff repair and a biceps tenodesis.

While the front of the shoulder aches, I am quite surprised to be able to remove the sling and straighten my arm. I expected all kinds of pain from this, but it's a relief to be able to flex one's elbow.

The back of the shoulder feels fairly painless - for now anyway. The cuff repair doesn't seem to contribute to the pain.

Washing and dressing takes longer and my wife, Julie, is being very helful - thank you sweetie xx.

During the next few days I will be following the initial exercises and blogging about the pain! These are:
- making and releasing a fist
- bending and straigtening the elbow
- pulling back the shoulder blades
- turning the head to stretch the neck muscles

Physio begins in four weeks - six weeks in a sling in total.

No comments:

Post a Comment