I had surgery late January to reattach my pec major tendon to the bone.
Recovery has for the most part been on track (much slower than I’d like) up until the past week or two where I’ve been getting a lot of swelling, pain (seems like nerve pain since it’s shooting down my tricep into my elbow) and reduced ROM/strength. Naturally I struggle with ROM and overall flexibility.
I saw the physical therapist and she has me backing off the regiment for a week, continuing to heat and ice my shoulder and wants me to take ibuprofen (surgeon told me no ibuprofen for six months).
Any tips or input you guys could give? Thoughts on ibuprofen? Anything I should or shouldn’t be doing to speed up the recovery process?
Hi mate
As a physio my first priority is to fix the cause. Pec tears and anterior shoulder injuries are usually accompanied with a pre-existing lack of shoulder extension and internal rotation range of motio (the motion of tucking your shirt in your trousers behind you). Because of this, when the shoulder is put through a bench press or dip like motion the anterior shoulder dumps forward and the pec tendon has to travel further, couple this with load and fatigue, and you have your mechanism of injury.
So once the surgery has settled my first aim will be to focus on improving range of motion into extension and internal rotation.
Tight lat dorsi can be an issue post-operatively due to sling and lack of use. So get your therapist to work into your lats. Tight lats will pull the anterior shoulder forward and down, again giving a “dumped shoulder” posture. Pressing with a dumped shoulder postures puts too much stress on the anterior shoulder, again cue mechanism of injury. Give the lat dorsi some length and suppleness and the shoulder posture will improve too, and its a less aggressive way to help the shoulder without stressing the pec.