Wear and Tear: Shoulder rotator cuff repair with Dr. Tito Liotta

Steven Koski had been down this road before – rotator cuff repair surgery. Although he admits he is not a “huge fan” of hospitals, shots, surgery, incisions or stitches, Steven was first a patient of Dr. Tito Liotta’s six years ago, when he repaired a partial tear in his left rotator cuff. He became a patient of Dr. Liotta’s again when, working as a general contractor, Steven slipped in mud and fell onto his right shoulder and back.

“After some 50 years of working and playing hard, my right shoulder’s rotator cuff couldn’t take it any longer,” he says. “I began to wake up frequently with a very painful, throbbing shoulder. If my right arm wasn’t in the perfect 90-degree bend, on my hip, draped over a pillow, then I would very quickly awaken in pain. Things were getting worse quickly. Something had to be done.”

Dr. Liotta diagnosed Steven with a full thickness shoulder rotator cuff tear, and set forth to repair it using the Tetrous EnFix technology. “(After surgery) I was in a sling with my shoulder immobile for six weeks, on a large pad, connecting to the sling, with straps around opposite shoulder and back.”

Steven left the hospital with a nerve block and wore a vest that circulated ice cold water and compressed the affected area, which Steven had cycling on and off every twenty minutes, as well as medications to assist in his recovery.

Today, Steven still works as a contractor and volunteers at a carpentry shop and plays basketball whenever he can. “I had mostly full motion within in six months,” he says, “and full strength in one year. I’d call that success.”