Rotator Cuff Tear Specialist

What is a rotator cuff tear?

A rotator cuff tear is a frequent shoulder injury affecting the muscles and tendons that keep the bones in place in the joint. The rotator cuff enables you to move your arm around in a wide arc and raise it over your head. If something forces the muscles and tendons beyond their ability to stretch, you can suffer a rotator cuff tear.

Rotator cuff tears often affect people whose work involves having their arms above their heads. These tears can also be sports injuries and frequently happen at the same time as a shoulder dislocation.

If you have a rotator cuff tear, you're likely to have trouble raising your arm. The shoulder joint will be weak and painful.

How are rotator cuff tears treated?

Unless the damage to your rotator cuff is extensive enough to require urgent surgery, the most likely course of treatment involves conservative measures. Activity modification — avoiding the movements that make your pain worse — gives the tissues a chance to heal, while anti-inflammatory pain medications keep your discomfort under control.

Physical therapy is also important to encourage blood flow and help rebuild strength in the shoulder. Should these measures prove unsuccessful, steroid injections into the joint could provide effective long-term relief.

If nothing is helping, or your injury is severe, you might need surgery. The skilled surgeons at SOUTHERN WESTCHESTER ORTHOPEDICS AND SPORTS MEDICINE excel in performing surgery for rotator cuff tears.

They might need to debride (smooth off) the affected part of the joint, or if there's a complete rupture, they can reattach the torn tendon to your bone.

What does surgery for a rotator cuff tear involve?

In most cases, your provider at SOUTHERN WESTCHESTER ORTHOPEDICS AND SPORTS MEDICINE uses minimally invasive arthroscopic techniques to operate on rotator cuff tears. The arthroscope they use is a flexible instrument that has a light and a tiny camera. It fits into a small incision in your shoulder.

Using the images of the inside of your shoulder sent back by the arthroscope, your provider can remove or repair the damaged tissues. They use suture anchors to reattach tendons to the bone and may use an autograft (tissue taken from your body) or an allograft (tissue taken from a donor) to repair severely damaged tendons.

For the most effective rotator cuff tear treatment, call SOUTHERN WESTCHESTER ORTHOPEDICS AND SPORTS MEDICINE today or book an appointment online.