🎨 Anat Ambar — Health Portal

Consulting surgeon: Dr. Edward C. Cheung, MD — UCLA Orthopaedic Sports Medicine & Shoulder Surgery (Santa Monica / Westwood).
Board-certified, fellowship-trained (Brown → UCLA residency → UCSF fellowship). Team physician LA Chargers (NFL), UCLA Bruins. Affiliated with Hospital for Special Surgery.
Purpose: Review both MRIs, discuss operation options for end-stage right glenohumeral (shoulder) osteoarthritis.

Dr. Cheung's recommendation (Sep 1, 2026): Reverse total shoulder replacement (not anatomic).
Likely drivers (Nushito's read of the imaging — confirm with him): worn + backward-tilted socket (glenoid retroversion, concave remodeling, grade 4 bone-on-bone) and rotator-cuff fatty infiltration/atrophy, which make an anatomic socket component more likely to loosen early. Reverse shifts the work to the deltoid muscle, so it doesn't depend on the cuff or a pristine socket.

The timing logic (valid): An implant's "wear clock" starts the day it goes in. Waiting ~5 years so it runs roughly 75→90 instead of 70→85 can lower the odds of ever needing a harder revision in your 90s. Caveats: a revision isn't guaranteed (many last longer than 10–15 yrs), and waiting lets the socket keep eroding while recovery gets harder with age.

Nushito's read (not a fact): With tolerable pain + protected sleep, watchful waiting with periodic imaging is defensible — the deciding factor is how fast the glenoid (socket) is wearing. Pin that down with Dr. Cheung.

Bottom line — sooner is better than waiting for it to get bad:
Your shoulder is worn down to bone-on-bone. It won't heal on its own, and pills and shots only mask it for a while — it got worse from 2023 to 2026 and will keep going. The operation swaps the worn parts for metal and plastic; about 90–95 of 100 people are glad they did it, roughly 5–10 have some problem, about 1 gets a serious infection. Small risk, big payoff. With the reverse kind, the main thing you give up is reaching far up behind your back — most people call that a fair trade for a shoulder that stops hurting.

Why waiting doesn't help you: the joint keeps wearing, so there's less bone to anchor the new socket into later. The cuff muscle is already turning to fat — and muscle that turns to fat doesn't come back. Whoever goes in stiffer and weaker comes out stiffer and weaker — your starting point sets your ceiling. And you heal better at 70 than at 75.

The real test isn't "can I still sleep?" — it's "is this changing what I do with my day?" Avoiding activities, needing help dressing, taking pain pills regularly. You're already modifying workouts and on Celebrex for the shoulder, so you're closer to "now" than "later."

Start the consult — it commits you to nothing. Surgeons book weeks-to-months out, so beginning now just puts the timing in your hands.