Tony is a 61 year old farmer, who lives in Rural NSW. His injury occurred when he fell off a horse and landed on his left shoulder. Tony presented to his local Emergency Department where he was complaining of left shoulder pain and an obvious lump. He was diagnosed of having an AC joint dislocation and had an X-ray was placed in a sling. He was given conflicting information as to what to do.

A week later, Tony attended my rooms and I noted that he had an obvious visible deformity to his left AC Joint. On examination, he had evidence of a Grade 3/5 Left AC Joint Dislocation, which was confirmed clinically and by Xray. He had collapse of his shoulder with loading his shoulder against resistance. This is typical of a significant disruption of your AC ligaments.

For this reason I gave Tony the option of an AC joint reconstruction using special tape and little metal dog bones that are placed on top of the clavicle. The advantage of surgery was that it could reduce the dislocation and decrease his pain.

I operated on Tony later the same day and, after an overnight stay in a Sydney hospital, he was able to travel 4 hours home. Tony reported feeling significantly better after the surgical stabilisation of the joint. Below is the x-ray just one week after surgery.

At 6 weeks he had normal alignment to his shoulder and near full range of motion. He was very happy he had surgical stabilisation of this joint.