Labral tears :My very own shoulder thread. aka sweet blog dude

So being young and stupid I have had shoulder issues since high school, two confirmed dislocations the first with a labral tear (never went to the doc for the second) multiple seperations blah blah blah.

So lately have had really bad stability issues/loss of strength,ROM, finally got around to seeing an Ortho today. basically confirmed what i thought he would say. going to need surgery on my shoulder.

Definite labrum repair needed. He won't know how bad for sure until I get my MRI on New Years Eve, but he thinks i tore the bottom half of shoulder cuff out.

/sweet blog

Does anyone have any experience with galalidium contrast MRIs? tried looking into it and most of the sites were lawyer mongers trying to get class action lawsuit or others saying i am going to die

Gadolinium is a contrast material used for MRI. Your chances of having a reaction to it are very small.

There have been reports of people with renal failure, most on dialysis, who developed a syndrome called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. Gadolinium exposure seems to be associated with this.

If you have risk factors for kidney disease (> 60 years, diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosis, history of renal disease, multiple myeloma), you will need to have a blood test for kidney function prior to the MRI.

The MRI w/contrast I had done for my shoulder a couple weeks ago was pretty easy...until the anesthetic wore off that night. Some pretty harsh stingers going on deep in my shoulder. I'd just be sitting on the couch watching TV and move my arm to pick up a glass and it would hurt like a bitch real quick. Felt really fucking unstable that night as well, but was fine by the next day thankfully.

I get my labrum sewn back together and a capsular shift on Wednesday. Gonna make for an interesting Christmas this year.

awesome. nice first hand info. how bad was your tear mdp?

My tear runs about halfway around. I had arthroscopic surgery in '98 or so, but it didn't hold. This time, it's getting a full open repair. Just dislocated it for the 8th or so time in early November. All I did was put a backpack on. As I threw the weight over my shoulder, out it popped.

Latajet. Latajet.

Before my MRI they pumped me up with a bunch of lidocane and contrast stuff. I was a little sore the next day, but it was totally painless and I didn't have any side effects. Also, you don't have to go very far into the MRI machine, so don't worry about claustrophobia, you can actually see out if you look down at your feet.
Hopefully you won't need full invasive surgery. Good luck man.
My dislocation has recurred way more than 8 times, but it is a partial, and puts itself back in place. So this surgery ought to hold. There is a double labrum tear and a general laxity in the sack of tendons and muscles around the shoulder, but no rotator cuff damage.

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Originally Posted by crackboy

awesome. nice first hand info. how bad was your tear mdp?

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I accept with information:This time, it's getting a full open repair. Just dislocated it for the 8th or so time in early November.

thanks for the support guys. the idea behind the contrast sounds painful as hell, but its nice to know it isn't that bad. i am not that claustrophobic so that wasn't a concern, regardless i think the place iam getting mine is an open machine.

i know i had 2 dislocations at the very least, but who knows how many sublexes. they always go back in. now my shoulder is loose, and unstable.

Mine always gets hung up under the glenoid. I've never been able to get it back in without muscle relaxers, even when coaching friends on how to pop it back in, which has probably done more harm than good.

If I counted subluxes, my pop-out count would be much higher.

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Originally Posted by drmark

Latajet. Latajet.

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Seeing this scares me. I talked about the Latajet with my ortho and he is confident that he can get it stable without that procedure. Hope he's right.

The Latajet is rarely the first, but nearly always the final operation done on someone's shoulder.

The more instability episodes a guy has the more imperative it is to do a bony procedure.

The problem is most orthopaedic surgeons under 50 have no clue how to do open shoulder surgery.

Good luck. I am coming to the realization that I will need surgery on my other shoulder after having my labrum torn left one repaired last April. The right one is just about a year behind. I am wallowing in denial and avoiding going to see my ortho because I know the answer already and I don't want to miss as much skiing this year as I did last. Stupid I know.

well got my arthrogram today. still haven't seen if i can open up the images they gave me, but kind of feel like shit. hoping it was the nasty burrito i had after it and not the actual contrast

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Originally Posted by crackboy

well got my arthrogram today. still haven't seen if i can open up the images they gave me, but kind of feel like shit. hoping it was the nasty burrito i had after it and not the actual contrast

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I had that done like 2 weeks ago and my shoulder felt weird for a day or so, but after that it's back to normal. It should wear off pretty quick.

Well today was the follow-up to my MRI so i got to see how bad it was. the short version. huge tear from 3 to about 9 anterior,posterior and inferior

the long version:
glenoid labrum has a labral glenoid junc. tear from approximately 3 mid anteriorly to about 6 mid inferiorly with marginal chondrosis anteroinferiorly at 4-5 o'cl. this appears to be chronic and results in a slight separation between the frayed slightly diminutive size of the ,abrum and its glenoid attachment.

Posteriorly, the labrum is dimunutive at 7 through 8 o'cl. with diminished labral height and labral glenoid attenuation. the labrum itself is markedly diminutive and has a frayed free edge at 9 o'cl. the labrum restablish is a portion of its normal size but has a prominent labral glenoid junction as well. small labral glenoid junction cysts are present at 10 o'cl measuring about a mm and a half in diamter and there is advanced fraying of the posterior superior labrum at 10 o'cl extending to a large intrasubstance tear at 11 o'cl. I do not see any peelback

there are small subentheseal cysts beneath the infraspinatus attachment and there is some minor fraying of the articular surface of infraspinats but no findings suggesting a Hill-Sachs lesion can be identified. other then teh anteroinferiorly, the glenoid surface are normal and humeral head articuular are unremarkable.

acromion is relatively straight with a slightly shallow inclination angle. ac joint has minor degenerative changes

So yea. Scheduled surgery for Feb. 22.

Shit man, that sounds rough. I just had my MRI today and the images look kind of nasty but not as bad as the ones from my left shoulder last year. My surgery is scheduled for February 4.

FWIW I had the galalidium contrast MRI and I didn't feel a thing besides a little needle prick that hit the socket when they injected the lidocaine. Needles have never bothered me though. I'm sure it's worn off by now and I still don't feel a thing. It's as if I never had anything done. Go figure.

yea the contrast wasn't that bad. i actually didn't even feel the lidocain needles, and the only unfcomfort was when they injecte the contrast into the joint since the pressure was right where my shoulder has been hurting. i was sore for like 3 or so days probably due to the size of my tear and the contrast getting into the joint

i need to go back and look at my photos now that i understand what i am looking at.

as much as i am not looking forward to the recovery process, my shoulde rhas been getting worse each week, so i can do without that

Yep. Waking up several times a night with a stinger sucks. And falling skiing fucking hurts like hell. I have only gone down two times all season but they were painful. And for me to fall that seldom means my skiing is way too conservative at this point. Still trying to get a few more days in before the surgery.

so i don't know if you are a side sleeper but i found that if i stick a pillow under ribs wbut not under my arm/shoulder that i don't wake up in pain nearly as often. that plus a memory foam topper are awesome. obviously on the non-hurting side, but i can actually sleep on the off side like this.

first full day in a splint here. It fucking sucks. So does typing with one hand. Now that the nerve block has worn off, it hurts a little, but the percocet and ibuprofen are helping. I also have this thing that circulates ice water through a pack on my shoulder.
crackboy, good healing. I had similar damage to my shoulder too. I guess in some way we're in this together?
Surgery was quick and painless, hope yours was too.

no surgery yet for me. mine is end of february. what ice thing do you have. they don't give us one but i can buy it if i want out of pocket?

it's ths ice water circulating thing that is really inconvenient that I think I'm done with. brief google search - it's this: http://www.breg.com/cold-therapy/polar-care-kodiak.html

I only iced my shoulder for about 48hrs after surgery. I just had the girlfriend fill up a little dealie they gave me with icewater whenever it became ambient.

I think everything is inconvenient after surgery. I'm growing really tired of wearing this sling, but the scariest moment of my day is not wearing it while taking a shower. Arm feels really weak without support.