My scapular fixation journey started when I was diagnosed at around 15 (I am now 43) hence
my claim to fame seems to be that I am probably one of the earliest FSH sufferers to have had scapular fixation.

It all started I guess because I was referred to Professor Galasko (who is a top orthopaedic surgeon) for the winging of the scapular problem in the first place rather than the usual neuro path that most people seem to take and then get passed to orthopaedic surgeons afterwards.

Anyway cutting to the story of the scapular fixation, the first attempt failed, the initial idea from Professor Galasko was to drill holes in my scapular and then tie it to my rib cage, this worked fine until being a young male I decided to try doing chin ups, you guessed it the ties broke / stretched.

The following year Professor Galasko then decided to do the bone graft method taking bone from the opposing hip this was quite a lengthy operation then about 5-6hours, I believe that this has been reduced to a couple of hours now. So after having my arm immobilised with a number of very large crepe bandages for about six weeks (this was not very pleasant as it was over the summer months whilst on holiday from school/college sweat was an understatement!) Finally the time came to see how it had all worked out and with a small amount of self physio the stability in my arm was greatly improved, now I could lift my arm up and reach top shelves without having to throw my arm up grabbing the item and letting it fall, I could now reach up pick up and bring down what I needed in a controlled way.

On the back of this success I had the other shoulder done the following year the results turned out fine but I had a couple of issues during surgery, I managed to stop breathing when they gave me some pain relief ready for post op, they also managed to nick one of my lungs this is one of the things that can happen with this type of surgery, this put me in ITU for 24 hours with no pain relief other than entonox gas to get high on as they were now concerned how I would react to any pain medication.

Was it worth it a most resounding yes from me, aesthetically my shoulders look normal I have had much better control / stability over my arms. The down side is putting items of non stretchy clothes over my head.

The final claim to fame is my shoulders must appear in some medical books somewhere as before and after pictures were taken and I had to sign a release form for them to be used, It was a great pity that I could not attend a conference when I was asked to by Professor Galasko.