Sling and rehab
Roundtable · 5 threads
The sling weeks, the physiotherapy, and the slow months where the real result arrives.
The operation takes a couple of hours; getting the arm back takes the better part of a year. This section holds that long middle: the weeks in a sling, the first tentative pendulum movements, the physio appointments that feel like nothing is happening, and the slow discovery that reach and strength keep improving for months. Post your week number and someone here has stood exactly at it.
The timeline nobody quite spells out
If one message earns repeating here, it is that a new shoulder is judged far too early. Readers describe a stiff, weak, discouraging arm at six weeks that had turned into something genuinely useful by month six, and pain almost always settles well before movement and strength catch up. The site's week-by-week shoulder replacement recovery and the guide to physiotherapy after shoulder replacement show what each stage normally looks like and why the rehab, not the operation alone, makes the result.
The same patience applies to strength and reach. The sling protects the repair for the first weeks, active movement is added on the surgeon's schedule, and most readers say the arm they actually wanted turned up somewhere between month six and the first anniversary.
Patience has limits worth knowing, though. Spreading redness, a fever, a wound that is weeping, sudden new weakness, or pain that climbs rather than eases is a same-day call to your surgical team, not a wait-and-see post.