Janhvi Kapoor revealed at the trailer launch for her upcoming film Mr and Mrs Mahi that she dislocated both her shoulders during the intense two-year training period. A video released earlier by Yash Raj Films on YouTube showed the Bollywood actress training rigorously with cricket coaches Abhishek Nayar and Vikrant Yeligeti.
However, in an unfortunate accident, Janhvi sustained a Multidirectional Instability (MDI) injury along with multiple torn ligaments in both left and right shoulder. Director Karan Sharma shared that they took a very wise call of “doing all the correct rehab and giving her all the time needed to recover from the injury”.
Indianexpress.com spoke to Dr Aashish Chaudhry, senior consultant and head of Department of Orthopaedics and Joint Replacement, Aakash Healthcare, New Delhi, to learn more about it.
What’s multidirectional instability (MDI)?
“A shoulder instability occurs because of an injury to the shoulder or dislocation and if we do not take adequate treatment or the dislocation is very severe, it causes instability in one direction, which is known as anterior instability. Very rarely does it go in the posterior direction. Posterior is common in people who experience epilepsy or an electric shock from a live wire,” explained Chaudhry.
As per the doctor, if a dislocation is happening in more than two directions especially towards the back, it’s called multidirectional instability. “Multidirectional instability is bilateral and occurs simultaneously in both shoulders. The ligament is weak and if you look at the shoulder you can see that it is a hyper-lax joint,” he added.
How long does it take to recover?
“For such a dislocation, surgery is never the first choice of treatment. We recommend physiotherapy both on the regular side of the injury as well as the opposite side. If even 4 to 6 months of therapy is not helpful, we can go for MRI, find out where is the major loosening of the ligament, and then we try tightening it,” said Chaudhry.
In cases of surgery, he said that it can take up to one-and-a-half months post-operation along with 5 months of physiotherapy, resulting in 7-8 months of recovery in total.
Taking to Instagram, Kapoor shared a short snippet of the longer YouTube video, with the caption:
“The two years of training that went into this film that was such a huge part of my routine and life — that no one saw. Feels weird looking back at myself in all different shapes and sizes and levels of my game but the one thing that stayed with me the most was the courage, motivation, guidance and strength I got from the faith that both my coaches had in me.”
“I’m not gonna say it was smooth sailing, it was a little turbulent, the physicality especially. It was very draining and taxing mentally,” Kapoor said about her injury.