AC Joint Separation

My personal experience with grade 3 separation: I healed up surprisingly quickly, to the point that by the time I met with the specialist (~ 1 month post-crash) , he advised against surgery. He said that unless I had functional problems with my shoulder, surgery wasn’t worth the risks, which he said were possible complications from the surgery itself, and a high risk of developing arthritis in that shoulder later. I wasn’t indoor training at the time, but I estimate that I could have got on a trainer (one handed) within 2 weeks of the crash, and training pretty normally by about a month post-crash. My injured shoulder was a little bit weaker and ached from time to time for about 12-18 months afterwards, but if I had done more physio or strength training, my feeling is that it would have come back to 100% sooner. Today, 4 years post-crash, there is no strength or function difference that I am aware of, and the only sign it ever happened is a pretty big bump on my collarbone.

3 Likes