How Long Do You Wear a Sling After Shoulder Surgery?

Common questions people ask is, how long do you wear a sling after shoulder surgery?

For us, we are unique in that. We are anti-sling. We give patients slings, but we don’t force them to wear one because using a sling is a very unnatural position. Your elbows are flexed. Your arm is internally rotated. It’s a cramped-up position. It’s not great.

Most patients after shoulder surgery will want to wear the sling at least periodically throughout the day. But for the vast majority of operations we do, the second you feel comfortable coming out of that thing, come out of it. Then, follow the general restrictions we place on you for the operation. 

But a general movement is fine. It’s nice early on if you’re out in public, but that’s your prerogative if you want to wear it with us.  

When you look at the data, slings have not shown to be protective of the surgeries—like in sling versus no sling studies. So we have seen it for years—that patients come in and they don’t wear slings. And often, they are the ones who are doing the best.

You don’t have to wear a sling for the majority of our surgeries, but we still give it to you though, for comfort, for the first few weeks.