Pec Major repair 48yr old Male

rorymac74

Information for anyone unlucky enough to endure this injury. Pec major repair is a complete tear away of the tendon going from your pec to your upper arm. Mine tore at the bone during a GAA match.

it happened in July 2022 and the following day I attended a VHI clinic as the pain was bad and I could hardly move my arm. They informed me I would need an MRI. This in itself was a challenge and four weeks later I got one in Mater northern cross. At this stage the pain was all but gone but I had no power when my arm was out from my body. I managed to get a surgeon at the Sports Surgury Clinic to look at my MRI and he, fortunately for me, referred me to Ruth Delaney. I saw Ruth about 8 weeks after the incident and had surgery 2 weeks later. Ruth and her team were nothing short of top class and I consider myself so lucky she took my case. If anyone else finds themselves in this position there my be added complications if the surgery is 12 weeks plus after the initial incident.

After the surgury I spent 3 weeks in a sling, day and night. Obviously I couldn’t sleep on my right hand side, injury side. I found sleeping on my back with arm supported was fine. I slept well. I went off pain killers after about day 5 as I generally didn’t really have much pain. The only times I felt pain was at about 5am I would wake up with a dull pain behind my shoulder. This lasted about a week. After three weeks I was off the sling and started very minor physio with Ruth’s physio Orla. Orla is extremely knowledgeable and has been a great help. I feel with her help I am really making good ground in my recovery. I did find a numbness in my forearm, especially inner arm above wrist, this lasted for 5-6 weeks for me. I am currently on week six post op and todays physio session has pushed thing on a bit again. My exercises, which I do religiously, have no resistance or weights and it’s all about joint movement. Currently I can raise my arm just over head height but with these new exercises I hope to make big improvements in the next two weeks. I do see a good bit of muscle loss but I am determined to get back fully to where I was in June (10 Nov)

rorymac74

Just an update on the above post. I’m currently 7 months post operation. At this stage I’m 95% recovered, very slight shortness of range of movement but strength is back. I started doing light weights after three months. I had a lot of muscle loss on the injured side and still sometimes have a numbness above my wrist. At the start I did my physio everyday but found shoulder was getting tired and sore so did it every second day. The physio really helped, if you want to recover fully put the work in.

kirving

Fair play on the recovery - it's a slog. I had similar after surgery on a broken collarbone where they had to cut some muscle to put in a plate. 3 years on now and I'm almost fully recovered, keep up the physio for sure.

youngblood

Great to hear a positive update! Keep it up!