An Orthopaedic Question

[terpkristin]

I know, anybody who reads this title and then sees that I started the thread will be thinking to themselves, "What? She should know all the answers," but in this case, I'm not sure, was wondering if anybody had any insight.

The history:
7/3/2001: I injured my ankle playing soccer, as we discovered later, I ended up tearing all the lateral ligaments in it, somewhat irreparably.
7/26/2001: I had my first shoulder surgery, on my right shoulder. The surgery was a Bankhart repair with inferior capsule shift to repair and tighten the shoulder ligaments after REPEATED REPEATED REPEATED dislocations.
12/20/2001: I had my second shoulder surgery, on my left shoulder. Same thing as on the right shoulder.

After my right shoulder surgery, I did about 5-6 months of organized/guided rehab to ensure that it healed properly. For my left shoulder, I was only in organized/guided rehab for about 3.5 months, partially due to some problems my ankle was causing and a need to focus on that all of a sudden. It always seemed slightly odd to me that though my surgeon said my left shoulder was worse than my right had been, I did less rehab for it.

The current situation:
Anyway. My right shoulder has been stellar since the surgery, but my left has never felt "quite right," but again, with so many ankle problems (including just recently getting back into PT to work on my balance, gait, and strength), I've sort of ignored the left shoulder. Flash forward to just recently. Twice now I've woken up in the middle of the night with immense pain in my left shoulder and the inability to move it. These times have been about 3-4 weeks apart. Both times, I was able to take my right arm and move around my left upper arm/shoulder and get it to "settle out," thereby easing the pain (leaving soreness) and being able to use my arm again. To boot, my left shoulder makes noise when I move it, and it sort of feels like it's moving around again.

So what's going on??? After all that work on my shoulder and 4 years of no significant problems, and not really abusing my shoulder in any way (let's face it, I've had so many other problems, I haven't been able to abuse my shoulder), it strikes me as odd that my shoulder would be loose again. And, to be quite honest, I don't exactly remember what it feels like to have a dislocated or subluxed shoulder. In the last 2 years before I decided to have surgery, I was literally popping it out on a daily basis without pain, and was able to get it back in on my own. I had it fixed becasue it was becoming problematic with swimming and karate and climbing (none of which I've done since surgery, partly because I don't currently have access to a pool and partly because the other things I really can't do anymore).

I'm loathe to go back to a surgeon yet. After 8 surgeries in just under 3 years, I'm not ready to go under the knife again (and I REALLY detested the anesthesia used for those surgeries, and want to avoid THAT at all costs). Anything that this could be aside from a subluxing shoulder? Any other ideas?

TIA.
/tk

[Poli]

Icyhot?

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm not sure. Orthopedics was always my weakest subject. I'd suggest maybe talking to your internal medicine doc about it, to see what s/he thinks? Good luck!