shoulder surgery

[chamukuale]

Hello everyone,
I will be starting dental school this fall but I do have health issue and I would like to hear your opinion. I suffered a shoulder dislocation 7 years back and since then my shoulder does dislocate from time to time. It does not happen often since I work out to strengthen my shoulder, but every 4-5 months or if I'm playing sport and fall awkwardly, an accident will occur and it will pop out. I know that at some point I will need surgery, but I was wondering if I should get it before entering D-School, or just do it before entering clinic, or if it can wait later, because it is on my non writing shoulder.

Thanks for the help

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[chamukuale]

For those wondering, the reason why I am thinking of maybe doing the surgery during dental school, is because I will be attending a school that is far from my home, therefore it will be difficult to get some help to move in my appt in that city.

 

[drm85]

I'm a D2 (almost D3!!!) and I have had surgeries on both shoulders for what you have described. I had the last one done 6 months before school. I would occasionally disolcated esp with sports and activity. I would reccommend getting it done ASAP. There will probably never be a better time in your life to have orthopeadic surgery.

Unfortunately for me, I just tore my ACL and menincus in my knee playing basketball a couple wks back and am gonna have to go under the knife and recover as we begin clinic. I'll crutch along just fine though.

 

[chamukuale]

Thanks for the tip, but since you have experience with it, do you think it would be fine if I would do it during the winter break of D1? Because like I said earlier, I'm moving to a city where I will have to participate in moving in and I would not be able o get the surgery done before July. That's why I wanted to know if I should wait a little.

 

[billythekid]

fyi, your dental school might make you reapply if you can't go right away. its hard to defer at the start for medical reasons. something to keep in mind. why don't you get it done right now? plenty of time before schools starts.

 

[chamukuale]

I'm definitely not deferring anything, I'm just thinking of maybe waiting in Dec to have the surgery done if the rehab process is not too intensive since in 1rst year its mostly lecture based.

 

[mBjKmr]

i had shoulder surgery and you dont really want to be recovering form it during school. there is a good amount of time spent in rehab for the months following and depending on how bad your injury is, you may be on pain meds for a while after, which turned my brain into pudding and made me sleep all the time.

 

[The Anhedonia]

I'm a 2nd year and we're in preclinic every day of the week for 8 hrs a day. I just had surgery on my hand/forearm 2 weeks ago to decompress a nerve in the middle of the semester. hasn't really been an issue, but it's really inconvenient to be sore from the surgery when you are using your hands all the time. even though you dont directly use your shoulder in dentistry, you could still run into trouble if you need to have surgery in the middle of everything.

if surgery is an inevitable event you'll need to do, why not just get it out of the way and in the proximity of your family? i say do it now.

 

[drm85]

Thanks for the tip, but since you have experience with it, do you think it would be fine if I would do it during the winter break of D1? Because like I said earlier, I'm moving to a city where I will have to participate in moving in and I would not be able o get the surgery done before July. That's why I wanted to know if I should wait a little.

winter break of D1 would probably work. In my case I needed about a month after the procedure to be in the sling. Once I was past that there was really nothing that would hold me back from doing much with dentistry.

 

[Streetwolf]

Just something to consider....

It's probably in your best interest to get long term disability insurance if you don't have it already. Right now you could probably pass all their questioning and what not but if you end up having surgery they probably won't cover your shoulder. That means if something happens to your shoulder in the future and you can't practice for a while, your insurance will NOT kick in.

I know you're only in DS so if you can get something through ASDA that should work. Either that or wait until after DS if possible.