Dear STW massive,
Came off my bike yesterday, backend stepped out on greasy white paint on a mini roundabout, commuting to work. Dislocated my shoulder on landing. Had it manipulated back (ouch!!) in after about 1-2hours. Seeing the Dr again in 2 weeks, but on ‘average’ how long have others taken to be back on the bike again afterwards…
Just asking as a couple of mates are planning a 40th birthday biking holiday at the begining of May and want to go but only if biking with them.
And yes, I do appreciate that these will be anecdotal stories, and not medical opinion, and each one will depend on how badly damaged the ligaments were in each case 😉 but I’d still like to know what I’m in for…
Cheers,
Mark

Never mind your shoulder hows your plumbing….
Sound bad Mark hope you get well soon.

LOL cheers Pete, as yet no more floods! Which is great because right now I dont think I could turn the water off! 😯

I did mine a couple of years ago – fairly simple dislocation, put back in about 2 hours after I did it.

I was off the bike for about 5-6 weeks I think, then a few more weeks before I went off road.

Get well soon, listen to the physio, do your exercises religiously.

As a rule of thumb 6 weeks is about right but it’s really very dependent on how badly you’ve damaged your ligaments. 12 weeks certainly not unheard of but I’d have thought early May would be ok. Get well soon!

First dislocated mine (not on the bike) about four years ago. Took lots of advise and did exercises and got back riding about three months later.
The problem is that essentially you can ride today, though it might feel a bit stiff, but the risk of re-dislocating it is high. If you can get through another six months without doing it again, then the chance of it not happening again is high.
I had a collarbone break a couple of years ago, then a series of re-dislocations (again, non on the bike!) which led to me having surgery for it in November. An “open anterior stabilisation”.
I had my first very gentle ride back on Thursday (mid section of Blue Pig), and am very concious of not wanting to knacker it again. It’ll be falling off/over not “riding” that will damage me.

But as Beej says

“listen to the physio, do your exercises religiously. “

If it was only dislocated you should be ok for the trip. You’ll be steady but you’ll be there.

Cheers everyone! Alas, I’m ‘used’ to listening to my physio after being brought back from a discectomy back op about 4 years ago. 😕

Will see what the prognosis is when I see the medics in 2 weeks once the swelling has gone down. Am a bit concerned about the (possible) nerve damage right now as front deltoid and bicept regions still numb over 24h later, but we’ll see… Just doing the icing thing now to try to aid the recovery.

Mine also a simple dislocation and it was about 5 weeks before I was riding. (i was also quite a bit older than you so i guess you will heal quicker) I set the bike up with higher stem/ bars and soft suspension to reduce any strain and vibration on my shoulder. Just gentle bridleways to begin with.
As beej says get some good physio advice and do the exercises. I overdid it on several occasions which set me back a few days but normally it was from other physical activities, not riding my bike!

Good luck – I think you’ll be riding a lot by May but will likely still be a bit protective of your shoulder.

3/4 weeks if you go in a hyperbaric chamber,6 weeks to heal normally but all depends on youre fitness!

I dislocated colar bone / sholder joint in Aug: took 2 weeks before i could get on turbo, 7/8 weeks for a very tentative ride, i felt ok to ride for a short while before this but you have to make sure that another bang wouldnt be a complete disaster as you are going to be very vulnerable for a while! so hard as it was, i held back.

Speedy recovery!

Having done mine 8 times I am currently off the bike (since Decemeber) following a Latarjet operation on mine.

Agree with advice, I am rubbish at doing my excercises hence the problems I’ve had (although falling off in the Alps and saving my self from falling through a ceiling doesn’t help!).

One thing I have found that helps me over the years is NOT to keep my arm in the sling for very long. I found better results after 2 weeks MAX in a sling, with 1 week at home without arm in sling and then light duties at work from week 4. I normally wait 6 weeks before road cycling and then off road when I felt strong again.

Having read up on this recently, there was a paper that had done a study and found that if you dislocated your shoulder under 25 your muscles are more likely to be damaged than if you are over 25. You should be OK long term!
Having done mine when I was about 12 I was doomed.

No off-road riding for me till June 🙁

Yep, def ‘over 25’ group for my first dislocation! Cheers for the feedback, will see what drs and physio have to say when I see them…

How long have people been off work with this? I asked the Dr in A&E but all he said was 6 weeks immobilised…. Currently having a bad day with it. Tramadol from yesterday now def worn off and shoulder feels very ‘messed up’ in distant manner, but loads of horrible muscle spasms…

Depends what you do. I have an office job, I was back at work a couple of days after doing it. I could take the arm out of the sling and rest it while at the laptop so it didn’t stress my neck/back too much.

If you immobilize it for 6 weeks then that plus some as it won’t move if it’s not moved for 6 weeks.

Again, depends what you do, After my op they treated me similar to a disco and I went back to work after 4 weeks but still had my arm in a sling for 2 weeks at work until the 6 weeks when the physio let me take the sling off.

Get basic movements going quickly and keep moving your elbow as that can seize up pretty quickly.

I found the ‘stirring in a pot’ excercise good for keeping it moving.

From all the research I did, the general consensus was that Tramadol is bad for you!

years 😉

Did mine quite badly in August, twice in one day and broke the socket. I had a Bankart repair op, had additional frozen shoulder problems so not an easy time. It’s just strong enough to be able to fall on it, I have about 90% movement and that’s as good as its going to get for me.

Dislocated both my shoulders during the same incident – one was a subluxation the other a full anterior dislocation.

I was back riding after nine days.

I’d recommend resistance band stabilisation exercises.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hm7xqu-pOEc[/video]

Thanks for the exercises I was kind of expecting lots of rotator cuff stabilisations..

As for tramadol, it may be ‘bad’ for you, but boy it does feel good!!!

TwoDogs was your answer in regard to how long to recover, or how much time to take off work? 😉

Hi Guys,
Well, thought I’d write an update for anyone who might be interested…

So I went back to the hospital frac clinic 2 weeks after the initial accident. Dr there waggled it about, asked if I could ‘push thru’ the pain, which I tried and then felt so much pain I was about to faint! The Dr then did nothing more saying she couldn’t tell if I’d damaged anything and to go away, start physio and come back in 4 weeks…

Well started physio and it was complete agony. Physio said there was way too much pain for such little movement, so I took the physios advice to get a 2nd opinion, privately (thank goodness for work health insurance). He ultrasounded me, and x-rayed me again from a different angle and found a broken gleniod rim bone which the humerus took out when it blew out, with a concurrent dent on the ball socket bit of the humerus, and what looked like a 50-60% tear in my rotator cuff. Had an MRI scan a few days afterwards to confirm and then straight in for a rotator cuff repair.

So here I am now, 3 weeks post op and the physio is an absolute nightmare with the pain. Apparently its not unusual with the level of messed up-ness that I did to the shoulder, but boy, does it hurt now trying to mobilise it…

Specialist is saying another 5 weeks off work to conc on physio and movement, and I have to agree that I couldn’t do this pain (with physio every 2hours) and try to work. I’ve got very poor movement both upwards and sideways… Current prognosis is 6months for 80% recovery of movement..

The only positive I can take is that I’m so pleased my physio suggested a 2nd opinion (and that I had the insurance to cover it), but why didn’t the frac clinic even try to spot these problems? especially when I (literally) nearly fainted with the pain? I really dread to think what the outcome would have been if I didn’t have the specialist, and I just listened to the frac clinic! I think I’m going to have to write a letter to the hospital to let them know just how badly their aftercare and ‘diagnosis’ was. The NHS is great in the emergency side of things but I feel really let down after that, and feel somewhat ‘responsible’ to let the hospital know as to (hopefully) avoid the same thing happening to someone else, who might not be lucky enough to have insurance…

Just take care out there!

Mark

Thats rough, I was lucky that there was no fracture in mine, but a lot of soft tissue damage. by 5 weeks I was back on the road bike, not dared to try offorad yet as its still sore. I was on the turbo from the start though… main thing for me was being able to put weight through my arm on handlebars

That turned out to be a bit of a nightmare then. Glad you finally got it sorted and are on the mend.

That sounds really grim. Good luck with the recovery.

It sounds very like mine Mark (with a similar nhs diagnosis) its felt like it’ll never get there, but lots of pain and persaverance and I’m at almost full mobility (can’t get my arm right back at head height) however its as strong as it was (lots of gym work) and I’m very comfortable with it overall. It’ll be fine but hang on in through the tougher moments and don’t do anything stupid too early on!

Cheers Guys…

Transapp, that sounds encouraging at least, how many months down the line are you now?

Did mine 20 years ago playing rugby and it was crap for ages. Effectively ended my rugby career, this seemed preferable to surgery. Had to remember not to use that arm to flush the toilet or it would come out.
The shoulder joint is inherently unstable, its a ball articulating on a rather flat surface (rather than in a socket like the hip). There is a cartilage rim (glenoid labrum) around the bony bit of the scapula to make it a bit more secure. Then you have the various ligaments etc that tie it together.
Your outlook will depend on how many of these structures you damaged.

I did mine in August last year, operation at the start of September. I’m fine now and back to fitness. Would have been sooner if I hadn’t got a frozen shoulder as well which put a couple of months on it. Nothing I could have done to avoid it, I was just unlucky.
The Bath hospitals, doctors and physios were great once I went private.