I cant speak for others who have had rotator cuff surgery. Only for my own experience. Mine were both full thickness tears. Which is actually not common. Most rotator tears are partial and although I am sure the pain is still very intense, I cant say that it is as bad having never had a partial tear. However, I can tell you that I was taking both morphine and percocet at the same time and it did almost nothing to curb the pain. And the physical therapy was so bad that it seems like yesterday and it was over two years ago. Anyone having a shoulder problem I always caution, especially when the doctor mentions bone spurs. Jeff Everson wrote an artical in Planet Muscle several years ago in which he states that he regrets ever benching heavy because of the bone spurs he has had removed. Not that lifting heavy causes them but he seemed to think in his own case they did. Take that for what it's worth. But the shoulder is one of the most complicated joints in the human body and once damamged to the degree of a rotator tear they rarely return to 100%. The picture you see of my right shoulder is in fact the offending shoulder. This picture was right at a year and a half after surgery. so making gains is still possible, even after a full thickness tear. But the shoulder is not the same, and it's not at all shy about letting me know it.