Sorry to hear of your injury. I wish you a quick, full recovery back to pain-free, full functionality. I'll echo others' suggestions to stick with the PT, and add that (in accordance with your doc's orders) to start on the PT ASAP (don't wait), take it seriously and do not miss any of it, it makes a big difference. I'll add a couple other suggestions (for you now, and for anyone else with the same diagnosis in the future)...
1) Get tested for COVID-19, and 2) get a second opinion on your diagnosis,
before you go under the knife.
Get both.
While definitely a long-shot (because I assume your ortho doc knows what he's doing and you got a good MRI interpretation), there is so much we are still learning about this virus - the medical community are publishing and amending the list of symptoms. They recently added "pain" to the list. Yep, "muscle pain" can now indicate you are infected (
CDC,
New York Times). Now, in your case you probably do have the right diagnosis, but...though it seems unlikely that a trained medical specialist might confuse a torn rotator-cuff with a COVID symptom, but...well, you want to be sure you're getting the right treatment, and you don't want to be infecting the facility where you will be having the surgery either. And then there's my own personal experience with being diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff which I'll share...
About 4 years ago, I was getting ready for a trip to Palau. We had a week booked on a liveaboard, and my wife and I were looking forward to it very much. The trip was scheduled for early February. Around the previous Thanksgiving weekend, I woke up one morning with an intense, sharp pain in my shoulder. It was awful, and prevented me from moving my arm much at all. I made an appointment and went in to see my GP doc a a few days later. This is my primary doc that I've been going to for decades and I trust him. He took an xray. He looked over me and the xray and announced, "torn rotator cuff". I explained that in 8 weeks, I was going to be on a dive trip in the South Pacific, I would need to wrestle with dive gear, pulling myself in and out of a wetsuit, etc. He gave me a look (a mix of skepticism, resignation and eye-rolling), pointed me to a physical therapist with an office in the building. I went there, they said yeah, common sports injury, start doing this PT routine, blah blah. So I started. A week or two went by, me doing the PT every day. The shoulder did not seem to be getting better, it actually seemed to be getting worse. I wanted a second opinion. My wife is a nurse in a surgical OR. When we need a referral, she asks at work. The next day in the OR, she shouts out:
"My husband needs shoulder work. Who's the best shoulder ortho surgeon in the city?" All of the docs in the room answered the same: "
go see (doc's name)". I called that doc and set up an appointment ASAP (between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a busy time for doctors), which was about 2 weeks after my initial GP diagnosis. I went in to see the doc. This is the ortho unit that works on the local NBA, NFL and MLB athletes - they've got signed posters from local pro sports stars in the waiting room (I'm thinking, jeez, I hope my insurance covers this...). Doc sees me, asks a few questions, has me do a few new xrays, looks at them, pokes my shoulder a little, twists my arm slightly while listening carefully, then looks me in the eye...
"Your rotator cuff is fine. You can stop doing the PT." Concerned and confused, I explain that I need to be able to do scuba stuff, squeeze into and out of a wetsuit, etc. in about 5 or 6 weeks. He tells me not to worry. I'm thinking "WTF?". He takes my shoulder, applies a little pressure to one spot, asks me to move the joint around. I have to admit, it feels a little better. Now I'm really confused. I am not a religious person, I'm wondering about faith-healers and quackery. He lets go of my shoulder, looks at me and says,
"You have a calcium buildup. It's irritating the joint. But it will go away." I ask what I need to do.
"Nothing", he says,
"Your body will absorb it, it should disappear in a week or two." I try not to scoff openly, and blurted out,
"Come on, really? You're serious?" He nodded and said yes, it would take care of itself. I shared my skepticism: it just sounds too good to be true. He chuckled and said it might sound that way, but he was confident of it. He showed me the new xrays, pointed to some light spots and said that's what a calcium buildup looks like, he had seen it before, and it would get better with the passage of time. He went on to explain that some people's bodies just produced it, and sometimes this was the result, but that I could stop worrying. Of course I remained somewhat skeptical - I mean, come on, I didn't even have to change my diet - I figured he would tell me to lay off the ice cream, but nope, it was not related to diet, just personal body chemistry. So stop worrying, do nothing special, and it'll get better soon. That just sounded too easy. I went home wondering. The next day, I woke up and it started to feel a little better. Each day the pain in my shoulder dissipated. After another week or so, it was almost gone. By the time we were packing for our trip, it was 100% back to normal. And it has never bothered me since. I can still hardly believe it. It seems like a miracle.
So, bottom line: even experienced docs can get things wrong sometimes. And sometimes you just get lucky (or really, really lucky, like me). Before you go under the knife, go get a second opinion (and a COVID-19 test) just to be sure.
Best wishes for a positive outcome no matter what you end up doing.
