Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Shoulder Rehab 4 Months & Ready To Go?

I saw Dr. Carlini last week and he was very pleased at my progress.  He said see you in 6 weeks and said, go do what you want to do, within reason.  He told me I could start increasing my swimming with two arms, and try some butterfly in a few more weeks.  He liked that I have a swim coach that went through an even more severe shoulder surgery and rehab, so my swim recovery is pretty well monitored.  That is when I get there..now that I can use both arms it's a good idea to start swimming more consistently right?

The doctor feels I am 95%, Susan, my physical therapist puts me at about the same.  As I listed before, book normal and Trish normal are two different measurements.  That said, only my external rotation is less than 15% on my repaired side (121 degrees) compared to my left side, which is 138 degrees.

In 6 weeks we should be even better and I hope to be doing backstroke and butterfly.  Then Doctor Carlini should let me go for 3 months.  I still can't lay on my right side for long periods of time but it is all a healing process and it will happen.  I started TRX training last week as well and so far just sore muscles, which is good. 

I think my next blog update will be about travel! Thanks for all the support the past few months.  I look back now and think it was so long ago that I couldn't do anything. Now it seems natural again to move my arm up and down, stretch and even tuck my shirt in my pants and scratch my back.  Amazing.