Gollum, I've had both these operations (the labrum repair twice) on my right shoulder. Here's my story:- The labrum tear was caused by a bad fall waterskiing wher the arm was jerked back violently as it dug into the water while the rest of me tried to skip across the surface like a skimming stone. The force detatched the labrum from about 4 o'clock in front to about 10 o-clock at the rear, and was what's techically termed a SLAP (superior labral anterior posterior )injury. The need for the shaving of the acromion was only apparent after the labrum repair - more later on that. I'm sorry to say that the glenoid labrum repair is not a trivial job. As you're probably aware it involves abrading the surface of the glenoid to make it bleed, drilling 2 or 3 bone anchors (usually disolveable) into the glenoid and reattaching the labrum to the bone anchors to hold it in contact while it reattaches itslef naturally. The problem is that the repair is very fragile whilst it is healing - blood supply to cartilage is poor, so healing is slow. You can expect to be in a sling, complete with body belt, 24 hours/day for 5-6 weeks. Sleeping is difficult as the sling is usually made from foam and gets very hot & sweaty The theory of the repair is that the bone anchors gradually disolve after the labrum has reattached itself to the glenoid. The holes where the bone anchors were then gradually fill up with new bone, eventually leaving no trace of the repair. That, at least, is the theory. In practice, what happened to me is that the bone anchors disolved too quickly (or the labrum reattached too slowly) and I detached it all again 6 weeks post-op just by tucking my shirt in. This leads to my one piece of advice:- BE *VERY* CAREFUL IN THE FIRST TWO MONTHS POST-OP. THE DANGER PERIOD IS 5-6 WEEKS WHEN IT JUST BEGINS TO FEEL OK AND YOU BEGIN TO DO THINGS WITH IT. THE LABRUM REPAIR IS STILL VERY FRAGILE, TRY TO USE THE ARM AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. In my case I was back in for the same op two weeks later, followed by another 6 weeks of misery in that awful sling (you will grow to hate it). The second time I had non-disolveable bone anchors to make sure the same problem didn't happen again. Happily, the repair seems to have worked fine second time around - it was over 3 years ago and have had no problem with it since. The shaving of the acromion is, by comparison, a walk in the park. If you're having it done at the same time as the glenoid repair you won't even notice it. If having it done as a seperate op, recovery is relatively quick and pain-free (compared to the labrum repair anyway). Oh yes, it wouldn't do any harm to start taking glocosamine and chondroitin tablets now. It's not *proven* to help but it does contain nutrients which are said to help cartilage regrowth.
