Originally Posted by
AluminumDuke
If your anesthesiologist offers you an interscalene block, I suggest you take him/her up on it. It's an injection of local anesthetic in your neck which will make your entire arm, including your shoulder, numb for several hours after the surgery. Having watched patients wake up after rotator cuff repairs both with and without having had a block, I would not allow anybody that I cared about to undergo a significant shoulder surgery without one. Even after the subjective numbness has worn off, patients require far less pain medicine when they've had the block done. There are some other options, including a pump which slowly injects local anesthetic into the shoulder after the surgery, but none which have been shown to work as well as an interscalene block. They'll sedate you before the injection, so don't let a fear of needles scare you away.
Good luck!