I imagine every shoulder injury/surgery/recovery stands on it's own. Mine came from a ladder fall.
DD - the gain/loss is do you want to lift your arm to or above horizontal again, or pick up anything in excess or 20 lbs again? My wife didn't take the surgery, and that's where she is.
Do the physical therapy!! It is worse than the surgery. And take the pain killers as prescribed- My Doc got on my case because I wasn't - said pain raises blood pressure and does some other stuff to delay healing.
9 or 10 months after my surgery I figured I was 98% or better to original. Then I got a job (at age 62) mishandling 30,000 lbs or so of airline baggage per day. Up to maybe 50K on holidays, etc.
Well, scale that back to 90%. After a year of that, working with Advil, etc. level pain every day, I was nearly fully recovered ( No longer needed the over-counter pain pills at work) - probably 97-98% now, honestly. It was a loooong year..... That was 9 years ago, 10 back to the surgery.
Only really severe or wrong weight handling (and sometimes the wrong/excessive overhead arm extension) gives me any twinges or a day or so of mild pain, now- but I'm retired and my conditioning has retroed.....
I try not to lift more than 70 lbs any more, and am careful if I have to lift more than that. Wrestling 120 lb outboards requires caution if I don't have help. And no more lofting heavy things up on high shelves!
