SLAP Tear

So, Jay has been in pain for years. He discussed the issue with an orthopaedic surgeon a few times, then finally went in for an official appt. They scheduled an MRI at the hospital, and the doc. was surprised at how progressed his injury was. He has what is called a SLAP tear (see below for details), and goes in for surgery this afternoon at 1:30 to try to repair it, screws and all. He will not be allowed to lift anything over 5 lbs with his right arm for the next 3 months. Right. If he does, and it tears again, it will be irrepairable, and the tendon would be cut rather than repaired, limiting movement (mainly rotating movement) for the rest of his life. He'd better comply. It's outpatient surgery, nothing major. We're hoping it will relieve his headaches and neck pain when it's healed. Below is copied and pasted from About.com. There's lots more to read about it if you're interested.

A SLAP tear is an injury to a part of the shoulder joint called the labrum. The shoulder joint is a ball and socket joint, similar to the hip; however, the socket of the shoulder joint is extremely shallow, and thus inherently unstable. To compensate for the shallow socket, the shoulder joint has a cuff of cartilage called a labrum that forms a cup for the end of the arm bone (humerus) to move within.
A specific type of labral tear is called a SLAP tear; this stands for Superior Labrum from Anterior to Posterior. The SLAP tear occurs at the point where the tendon of the biceps muscle inserts on the labrum.