When can I get back to golf, and is it true there's a weight I can NEVER lift again with a new shoulder?

Right, I am four weeks out from my anatomic total and thinking ahead, probably too far ahead, but it is what keeps me sane in this sling. Two things I cannot get a straight answer on.

One, golf. It is the thing I most want back, I am not ready to be done with it, and nobody will give me a number. The physio just says in time, which is not a month I can put in the diary. Two, and this is the one that has rattled me, a bloke at the club who had his done said he was told he can never lift more than a bag of sugar over his head again for the rest of his life, and that if he goes over the weight limit the whole thing will wear out or come loose. Is that real? Because I tow a caravan, I lift the hitch, I heave bags about, and if this shoulder means I am done with all that then I need to know now rather than find out the hard way.

So is there an actual weight I can NEVER lift again, and when does golf come back? Anatomic total if it matters, cuff was intact.

Mine is a reverse so a bit different to yours, but I was given firmer warnings than the total folk seem to get, specifically about heavy sudden lifting and about impact, because a reverse can dislocate and does not love a big shock load. I would not take the club bloke's exact bag of sugar line as gospel though, that sounds like one surgeon's cautious version passed through three retellings. Mine was more do not go mad, build up gradually, avoid the one big heave, rather than a hard number stamped on my forehead forever.

On the never lift again thing, that was not my experience at all. Reverse here and I lift a full watering can, hang wet washing, carry shopping, all things I was told to work up to, not avoid for life. What I was told to be sensible about was sudden heavy lifting and repeated overhead loading, which is a different thing from a fixed weight limit. The gradual bit is the key word everyone skips.

This is a brilliant question because the bag of sugar story is one of those forum legends that has a grain of truth wrapped in a lot of exaggeration, so let me pull the two apart as one patient to another.

Golf first, since it is what you actually care about. The honest range most people are quoted for returning to golf is roughly 4 to 6 months, and it comes back in stages: chipping and putting well before a full swing, because it is the big rotational load of the driver that the shoulder needs to be ready for. Swimming, especially anything overhead like front crawl, tends to come even later. Heavy or overhead work is generally held off for about 3 to 6 months while strength catches up with movement. So golf is not gone, it is a summer or so away, and your surgeon and physio set the actual date on your progress, not the calendar.

Now the weight thing, because this is where the myth needs gently correcting. For most anatomic totals there is not a single hard number you may never exceed for life. What there genuinely is, is a lasting bit of sense: avoid sudden heavy lifting, avoid repeated heavy overhead loading, and build up gradually rather than going from a sling to heaving a caravan hitch in one leap. The reason is wear and the socket component, not a tripwire at 1kg. Your club friend was almost certainly given a cautious early restriction that has been retold as a lifelong ban. Derek is right that a reverse gets firmer warnings about sudden and impact loads because of the dislocation risk, so the advice does differ by operation. Our page on going back to work after shoulder replacement goes through the lifting and overhead question properly, and what shoulder replacement will not fix is honest about the limits that do stay.

The one thing I will not do is put a kilo figure on your caravan hitch, because that is exactly the specific, examine-the-joint question only your surgeon can answer for your shoulder and your operation. Take the caravan and the golf clubs to your next review by name and ask them straight.

Just to back up the gradual point from the garden side. I assumed I would either be fragile forever or totally fine, and it was neither. A year on I dig, I lift bags of compost, I do the lot, but I got there by adding a bit at a time over months and not by testing the limit early to see what would happen. The never again framing had me quietly panicking too, so it is good to see it taken apart here.

Douglas Prentice said:

avoid sudden heavy lifting, avoid repeated heavy overhead loading, and build up gradually

That is a huge relief, genuinely. So golf is a few months off not gone, and the bag of sugar for life thing is a cautious early rule that grew legs at the club. I will take both the clubs and the caravan to my review and ask about the hitch specifically like you say, rather than either avoiding it forever out of fear or heaving it too soon out of stubbornness. Cheers all, this is exactly the straight talk I could not get anywhere else.