Hello,
About 8 years ago I had a SLAP repair of my left shoulder. About a year after that, I had a SLAP repair of the other shoulder as well. Ever since then I've had bicep tendonitis in both shoulders as well as other pain around the shoulder (mainly on the back sides) as well. However, the main area of pain has been the bicep tendons just below the shoulder/top of the bicep.
I had a stem cell injection in the left shoulder performed about three months ago. It seemed to help alleviate the pain to some degree. In the process of the injection, the doctor used a sonogram to assist in the placement of the injection. He noticed that the bicep tendons (both sides) were out of their tendon grooves. This lead me to wonder if the tendons came out of the grooves as a result of the anchoring of the bicep tendons to the humerus bone during the SLAP tear repair procedure.
I have a few questions:
1.) Has it ever been determined that the cause/source of some bicep tendonitis/pain was from the anchor/tie down itself in the anchoring of the bicep tendon to the humerus bone as part of the SLAP repair procedure?
2.) Would/could cutting the anchors loose alleviate the bicep tendonitis pain and, perhaps, allow the tendon to return to the tendon grooves?
3.) Would/should, in most cases, the SLAP repair itself, without the anchors, be strong enough to sustain the repair without the anchors assisting in the event that the anchors were cut loose?
4.) Are there any cases where it has been determined that the anchoring of the bicep tendon to the humerus causes the remainder of the shoulder joint to become unstable or perhaps less stable thus resulting in additional pain (in the back side of the shoulder?
Thank you
Brian
Anchorage, AK