Scapula muscle reattachment
 

Hello, my name is Dan.
3 years ago I got hurt on the job. Initial diagnosis was a torn rotator cuff and bicep tendons.
Had surgery, went threw PT, then back to work.
About 4 months after returning back to work my shoulder blade was killing me and shoulder hurt again.
Went back to Dr. Tore it again.. How you might ask??
I don't know....
Had surgery again. About 4 months later, same senerio, except shoulder blade never stopped hurting.

Long story short, have have 3 torn rotator cuff and bicep tendons surgeries, then diagnosed with NTOS.
Had another surgery, first rib removed. Still hurt!!
Then diagnosed with a winged scapula.
Had another surgery in Nov, my shoulder blade muscles were torn complety away from my shoulder blade...
The Dr said if he had to guess because of all the damage he seen when he opened me up the shoulder blade muscles have been torn all along.
Still have not started PT from muscle repair..
I don't hurt as bad as I did weeks after surgery. But just walking around a mall puts me in pain and bad headaches
Around base of my neck..
Anybody else out there had this surgery or problems??

What kind of work /sports/activities did/do you do?

Have you been to any of the top TOS drs for consult?
At the point you are at now, I would only consider a top doc.
NTOS is a very tricky dx, when the nerves are angry it takes a very long time for them to settle down.

winged scapula has been mentioned in past posts.. a search will bring them up..but they are a few years back...

I hope your PT person is very advanced/highly skilled..
A generic PT plan of strengthening, hand bikes & weights will mess you up a lot worse..
Passive modalities will be much more helpful.. like massage, trigger point, IF stim, ultrasound, low level laser if they have it..
posture awareness often helps to keep head balanced in-line and not the weight of the head forward straining the neck muscles.
I was lucky to find a chiropractor that used all of those plus gentle adjusting..

I would think about nutritional aspects to build up health internally, something has to be going on for all these tears and not knowing how they happened..

Vitamins/supplements that I think are helpful along with cutting out any negative habits/junk foods.
A quality MULTIVITAMIN
MSM
VIT C
Grape seed extract
whatever else you find that helps for you..

this is helpful for top rated products-
https://labdoor.com/rankings/multivitamins

And check out the sticky threads at top of main TOS page.

Scapula and vitamin E and selenium
 

Dan,
Research flying or winged scapula in cattle, and you will see it is due to vitamin E and selenium deficiency. This could explain your continued tearing of the tendons. If you decide to supplement vitamin E, make sure you take it as mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols. You can get a lot of selenium from eating Brazil nuts but may need a supplement. I think blood can be tested for serum selenium and vitamin E levels.
Good luck with your health,
Leslie

Vitamin E aint gonna solve someone who has been butchered with multiple surgeries and multiple scare tissues impeding blood flows.

A fail TOS surgery may required scapula surgery base on Ortho discretion(details later or look it up); however, scapula surgery side effect is TOS is they bring it up too high or too tight around your neck. You may have open a box of TOS Pandora. Too much already removed and too much is done. What I do is try to lean forward OR lift up shoulder and BAM pain from 10 to 4 as long as I position right.

I have been down the same road almost to a T except a different order and also include misdiagnosed cervical fusion. It went like this:
rotator cuff and labrum repair - very little help
cervical fusion - no help
suprascapular nerve release - no help
reattachment of scapular muscles rhomboid and lower trap - no help
TOS surgery - some help but took a LONG time

I also agree with someone who mentioned the caution around scapular muscle reattachment. I feel like mine were sewn back to scapula too tight and this causes a lot of my continuing problems. It did correct the scapular movement but did little to help with pain relief. I had the doc who is considered the national guru in this do my surgery. I still respect him a lot but it just didn't help me.

Honestly, I am finding I feel better the longer it gets from having my last surgery. It's been three years. Also moving and staying as active as your body will allow is key.

PM me if you want to know more. This is the first time I have been back to this board in over a year but will try to check occasionally if I can help someone else who has walked the difficult path I have traveled.

Your two stories sounds like mine. This is amazing. Something is really wrong here. I would like to do some more thinking before I share too much of my history because you cannot delete on this board. What you say sticks forever and I don't want to get in trouble with doctors. I feel bad for new diagnosis. If you don't have cervical ribs, truly try to get better before decide to do surgery or if you have DVT in the upper extremity then you must get TOS surgery I guess...

:Good-Post: