Well, this is apparently far worse than I had come to think..
I had dinner last night in Laguna Beach with 'GotGame' who had mentioned he would look over my MRi's I got back in November if I had them on a disc. We had a good dinner and he is a super intelligent cool ass dude in my book. However, later in the night I guess he didn't have a ton to do - so he popped in the cd of my MRI and text me that he was doing it. We had discussed over dinner the smart thing to do would probably be get it repaired if there were starting signs of mild cartilage damage.. but he was assuming it was just a labral tear with minimal to no cartilage damage.
"Bro your shoulder has bad arthritis"
"Bad cartilage damage"
"Yeah it's a labral tear, but it's a degenerative tear."
"I've seen enough get a cortisone shot do best you can."
When I asked for clarification on a degenerative tear he said
"it means your repair wouldn't last a day. You have arthritis. Cartilage gone. Shoulder remodeling.
You can't touch that.it's not a minor little thing.
Your shoulder looks like you're 85"
"Wtf"
"Left joint gone..it's not completely gone..but it's bad"
"Enough that a repair isn't considered"
I asked about what another person saw as a 'subchondral bone cyst" and GotGame told me "no there is no left cyst. That is joint effusion. You also have a small right cuff tear.(Which I knew-- 20% or so). He added "anterior..most fibers at its footprint."
Also...
"You've git a nice disc herniated in your neck. Your prior evaluation failed to mention that your left is shot and your neck ISN'T mild.. or small."
"Severe right c6-7 foraminal narrowing and moderate to severe left."
"It's severe."
"Disc at t2-3 is hitting your cord."
I then asked what's the best case scenario? And the worst?
"Nsaids and cortisone injections. In about 6-10yrs, total shoulder replacement. Don't tear that cuff or you'll need a total reverse shoulder. Time frame is a guess based upon lifting. I'd get a steroid injection sooner rather than later. Get a few good years of pain relief. And no..bpc and tb won't help."
"You probably need a two level disc replacement..at least 1 level."
"c5-6 and c 6-7 were hypertrophy and degen"
"I'd get a neck epidural."
So that is what I am coming to grips with at the moment. He also sent me a text this morning imploring me to take care of my neck.
"Reviewed your images again this morning. You need to take care of your neck. You're going to have lasting issues if you ignore it."
Some of this stuff is a little bit over my head but most of it I understand. I just wanted to provide an update to this since some of you might either learn from it somehow or will wonder how the progress is going. I will admit, I am a little bit shocked and down about it all - as I thought I would be able to be 'back to new' at some point. Fuck.
