Can I Have Shoulder Narrowing Surgery If I Am A Dancer?

Q: Dr. Eppley, Hello! I am very interested in the shoulder narrowing surgery since my shoulders are about 43-45 cm wide (not really sure). I should inform that I am a dancer and a big concern of mine would be that the surgery might constrict certain movements that require a lot of force. Would that be an issue? (Of course I mean after a healthy recovery). 

A: Requesting shoulder narrowing surgery and being a dancer is a new combination for me. Having never seen his combination before I can not say with absolute certainty that it poses no long-term issues in regards to exposing one’s arms to a large range of motion with a lot of force. But it would be logical to assume that when one is fully healed (3 months) that would not be a problem since the bones would be fully consolidated and back to normal bone strength. While my current recommendation is that patients can return to all normal not highly strenuous activities in 6 weeks I would push that recommendation to 12 weeks in this more highly strenuous activity.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana