A new shoulder and restored strength and mobility

A new shoulder and restored strength and mobility

For as long as he can remember, Union resident Kristopher Henning has led a physically active lifestyle.

In high school, he was a weightlifter and played football and other sports. As a 20-year-old, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard and spent five years after boot camp working as a buoy tender, a job that taxed his body.

"You're pulling the chain on deck, pulling lines and swinging sledgehammers to drive pins in the chain to attach them to shackles. It's very physical work, in all kinds of weather conditions, and always on a moving platform," he said.

Henning finished his Coast Guard time in 1989 but reenlisted in 1992 and continued serving until 2008.

"I lived and worked pretty hard during those years, both at work and at home. Even after I retired from the Coast Guard, I worked on boats - ripping and tearing all the time - and I also renovated a house," he said. "In my mid-thirties, I recognized my left shoulder wasn't performing the way it should. Later, it ached most of the time and eventually got so bad that I couldn't lift my left arm high enough to hold a nail and drive it or reach into a cupboard to get something."

Now in his early 60s, Henning knew his condition would not improve without medical intervention.

He met with his primary care clinician, who referred him to MaineGeneral Orthopaedics' Dr. Daniel Shubert, a fellowship-trained orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine physician who treats all shoulder and knee injuries, and select elbow, foot and ankle conditions.

"He had one of the most deformed shoulders in terms of bony deformity that I'd ever seen, and the only viable surgery was a reverse total shoulder replacement surgery," Shubert said. "The deformity was so extensive that he got the first patient-matched glenoid implant in Maine. That's where the baseplate part of the replacement is specially designed, based on a CT scan."

Henning had his surgery in May 2023 and could not be happier with the outcome.

"It's been 19 months since my surgery, I can do whatever I need to do with my shoulder and it doesn't hurt at all," he said. "At my appointment about five months after my surgery, Dr. Shubert had me do range-of-motion exercises and was amazed by what I could do. I can't thank him and his team enough for what they did for me."

"My whole experience was very good and I would recommend him to anybody - and I have," he continued, noting that he plans to work with Shubert again in the future to have his right shoulder replaced.

Shubert said he was very pleased with how well Henning is doing after his surgery.

"If you do a reverse on a patient in their late fifties or early sixties and it fails 10 years later, the only option is to do another one and change the implants. That's why I'm usually hesitant to do this procedure on anyone younger than 60," he said. "But with Mr. Henning, it really was the only option. His surgery went perfectly and his range of motion now is incredible. It couldn't have gone any better."

To learn more about MaineGeneral Orthopaedics' shoulder surgery program and its expert team of shoulder surgeons, visit www.mainegeneral.org/shoulder-surgery or call (207) 621-8700.