The Shoulder Replacement Recovery Manual: A Practical Week-by-Week Guide for the First 12 Months (Joint Recovery)

Surgery is one day. Recovery is a year. This is the map for both.

Shoulder replacement asks more of you than most operations: weeks in a sling, months of sleeping upright, a season of one-armed living, and a recovery whose rules change depending on which operation you had. This manual walks you through all of it, in plain language, one week at a time — from the first conversation with a surgeon to the day you stop thinking about your shoulder altogether.

Inside:

• Anatomic and reverse replacement, explained — what each operation involves, who typically gets which, and how the recovery rules genuinely differ between them
• The six weeks before surgery — home setup for one-armed living, the equipment worth buying (and skipping), and the sleep station that makes the first months bearable
• Day-by-day guidance for the hardest stretch — the nerve block wearing off, sling life, showering, dressing, and the two-week wall
• A three-tier red-flag system — what needs the emergency room, what needs the on-call line tonight (with the exact phone script), and what can wait for your next appointment
• The full recovery arc — physical therapy phases, sling weaning, driving, returning to work, and the honest timeline for getting back to golf, swimming, gardening, and everything else
• A dedicated caregiver chapter — written directly to the spouse or family member doing the two-handed tasks
• 22 appendices of working tools — surgeon question sheets, equipment checklists, pain and medication trackers, a sling-weaning log, month-by-month milestone checklists, and a Red Flag Quick-Reference Card designed to be photographed onto your phone

The chapters explain; the appendices give you tools. No medical jargon without a translation, no toxic positivity, and no assumption that recovery goes perfectly — including a full chapter on what to do when it doesn't.

Written for patients and their families, in the calm, practical voice of the Joint Recovery Series — alongside The Knee Replacement Recovery Manual, The Hip Replacement Recovery Manual, and The Knee Replacement Preparation Manual.

Whether your surgery is scheduled, being considered, or three weeks behind you: start where you are. The book is built for exactly that.