Skydiving after shoulder surgery

I can't answer this specifically to sky diving and a timeline but I have had 3 right should surgeries.  My first surgery was rotator cuff, labrum, and bicep relocation.  That took 9 months before I could do anything with heavy lifting.  My second was a capsule reopening, that took 4 months.  My third was just a rotator cuff and that took 5 months.  I am a lifter.  A year after full recovery from my last surgery I was lifting 200 lb on bench.  Two years after my last I was benching 245 lbs bench (with a spotter of course).  I have recently started working on my skydiving license.  I had a tandem first and unfortunately had an extremely hard open (the guy jumping with me was concerned I was going to be hurt as it hurt him and he declined jumps for the rest of the day).  My shoulder was fine but my neck was sore for a few days.  So, my experience with shoulder surgery is that you can do anything.  I was told that I would never be able to lift over 150 lbs, but I made it 100 lbs over with no damage again, plus at least one super hard opening.  So, take physical rehab seriously.  Work through the hurt as your body allows. Start strength training slow and steady, as your shoulder will be very week for a few months but muscle rebound is a real thing.  Advance as your body allows.  Back off if your body shows it isn't ready and you should be fine.  I am not letting it stop me from skydiving.  I probably should not say this, but I even had two discs in my neck replaced and still am going to skydive.  But, I took rehab serious and did the exercises (they look dumb) serious.  FYI, I am now 46 years old for an age comparison if you think you are too old.

I would add, sitting in the front seat of your car, reach behind you to pick up something in the back seat.  Is there any pain or discomfort?  That should give you your answer after you think it's OK to get back into the sky.

Back for another update....I ended up jumping about 3 weeks ago.  I was definitely nervous, both because it was my first after shoulder surgery and also because it was my first in about 11 months.  Much like with other activities that I've started picking up again (road cycling being the biggest one) it was all about getting over the mental aspect of "is it healthy enough to do this?"  Because it is, I know it is, my surgeon said so, my physical therapist said so, and it just takes some time back in whichever activity to believe it.  

Coincidentally, my biggest concern was what would happen if I needed to PLF and had to roll over onto the shoulder and that is exactly what happened.  We had a long spot and were landing off, and I wasn't even going to try to stand it up.  PLF went fine, I rolled back to my feet, and everything was good.  

Believe it or not, the only thing that really caused any discomfort was packing.  You use the shoulders a lot when packing, so my first day back I was one-and-done because there was no strength left after the first packjob.  The following weekend I got two jumps in, again decided to stop once it started stiffening up from packing.  

Now the season is just about done, so by the time jumping season rolls around again I don't think there will really be any limitations at all.  

On 4/4/2023 at 2:02 PM, MickPatch said:

Not the same sort of injury but here we go....

Last August I suffered and out of sequence deployment; pin displaced in the plane and main deployed whilst I was head down.

Resulting injuries were: fractures to T4, sternum, left scapula, 8 ribs (right), and punctured lung (right). 

I was lucky to get away so lightly and managed, with pure adrenaline, to fly the canopy for 10 minutes from 11000 ft and land in the middle of the Hokkaido where we all waited for the ambulance.

The 10 week immobilisation, particularly of the left shoulder (which didn't displace) led to a lot of deconditiining and tight ligaments, movement is still not 100% and it hurts a lot to get to the limit of flex still.

2 months and 3 weeks after the injury I was medically approved for jumping again and I was back in the air.

Flaring was hard and less than effective so I had to butt slide my landings. I could manage one jump in a day and that was it, I jumped solo and it was another couple of months the before I went terminal.

8 months on and I am still getting sports therapy to increase the range of movement, I can now manage 3 in a day.

Key is medical advice from someone who u derstands skydiving (the doctor I went to happens to be a world champion skydiver) and then work with a really good sports injury therapist.

Above all if you have any personal doubts don't get in the plane, I have driven to the DZ and stated on the ground some days as on that day it didn't feel right to jump.

 

Have had a search of the forums but not so much about shoulder dislocations... I dislocated my shoulder yesterday evening at the wall, defo a dislocation not a subluxation. Lucily there was a doctor there and he popped it back in quick (pain). Had an x-ray and there's no fracture, have an MRI tomorrow, got it strapped up and it doesn't really hurt now but aches and feels wrong... Anyway I'm not after advice on what to do as such, I intend to religiously follow what the doc and physio say but I am interested in anyone's recovery experiences, timescales, etc. Also if you were able to get back to where you were climbing before.... I've been mostly sport climbing for a while, did a couple of 7c's this week e.g. and would like to get back up to this kind of climbing although appreciate it might be a while. Any experiences?