Calcific tendonitis Perth
Everything you need to know about calcific tendonitis
Table of Contents
Calcific tendonitis symptoms
Could I have calcific tendonitis?
As the term suggests, calcific tendonitis occurs in your tendons. This can happen in any tendon of your body, but it mostly occurs in the rotator cuff tendons. If you have calcific tendonitis, calcium deposits build up inside a tendon close to where it attaches to the bone.
Dr Sven Goebel | Shoulder Surgeon Perth
You may wonder why you started developing calcific tendonitis. Usually, it’s the result of a number of small injuries that haven’t healed properly or it is caused by wear and tear.
Diagnosis
How is it diagnosed?
Surgery for calcific tendonitis
Calcific tendonitis treatment
First-line treatment
Initially, painful episodes can be treated with painkillers and ice packs. One of the recommendations may be to change some of your lifestyle habits. If your pain is persistent, injections with cortisone can be helpful to reduce inflammation around the bursa. Sometimes needling can be used as a technique to remove the deposits, but this sometimes does not work very well.
Surgery for calcific tendonitis
If all non-operative measures have failed, shoulder surgery may be recommended to relieve your pain. It becomes more successful in situations where the problem has been there for a long time: we are talking months or years.
An arthroscopic (keyhole) procedure called “subacromial decompression and evacuation of calcific deposit” is done under general anaesthesia. Two to three small incisions (portals) are made to introduce a camera and surgical tools. The inflamed bursa will be removed, together with a resection of bone spurs (if present). Then a needle will be used to identify the calcific deposits inside your tendon and the tendon will be opened just enough to let the calcium material out. The subacromial space will be thoroughly washed out.
Dr Sven Goebel | Shoulder Surgeon Perth
recovery
What happens after surgery?
After surgery, you will be brought into the recovery room. You will wake up wearing a broad arm sling that you should keep wearing for comfort and support.
We recommend that you start moving quite soon after your surgery. Very often, the day after surgery, your pain levels will have significantly lowered. We will give you a rehabilitation program before you leave the hospital.
- Persistent pain
- Infection
- Frozen shoulder syndrome
- Tearing of the rotator cuff
Having a shower:
1 day after surgery
Light exercise:
2-5 days after surgery
Driving:
Once able to elevate arm to 90 degrees away from the body with no pain
Normal exercise:
14-28 days after surgery
Going back to work:
14 days after surgery for light duties, 4-6 weeks for manual duties