It's different for everyone. I'm 61 now and thought I was in reasonably good health. I was hit by a car last May, breaking and dislocating my shoulder. A year later I'm still in physical therapy and not fully recovered. And there were other health complications unrelated to the collision injury that prevented me from getting surgery for the shoulder (main issue was thyroid cancer, discovered during X-rays for the shoulder and neck injuries; and early onset osteoporosis, both of which shocked the hell out of me).
Meanwhile a friend who's 20 years younger broke her collarbone much worse, needed appliances to screw everything back together. She was back on the bike in a couple of days and doing fast group rides in a week. Age matters.
I walked for the first several weeks, then a friend gave me a Cycleops trainer he wasn't using. I started back on that around mid-June, using a road bike on the trainer. I did lots of range of motion and stretching exercises.
By the end of June I was riding my comfort hybrid with flat bar, suspension fork and big soft tires.
It was two months after the injury before I tried the road bike outdoors. As I recall it was pretty uncomfortable the first few rides. I did several 20-40 mile rides that month.
In August I was out most of the month as the thyroid problem worsened. I tried some light weights and resistance bands with the shoulder and re-injured it. So I switched back to range of motion and stretching only for the rest of 2018.
By September I was feeling a bit better, back on the hybrid for outdoor rides, road bike on the indoor trainer. October-November were pretty much the same, moderate effort, not back to full strength.
Surgery for thyroid cancer in November, back on the bike in two days.
Since then it's just been a slow, gradual slog, getting back into shape. I've been back in PT for a month, and the shoulder is improving, but it still aches almost constantly, mostly around the shoulder blade, neck and mid-back, but not so much where the actual dislocation and break occurred. It still limits me to 20-30 miles on the road bikes, although I'm able to ride continuously or take one short break to stretch. I do longer casual rides on one of the hybrids with albatross bars at saddle height.
For me, the sluggish recovery has been surprising. When I was younger I bounced back quickly from injuries and illnesses. Even three years ago when I fell and injured some ribs it was pretty painful for almost six weeks, but I was back on the bike in two days and kept riding as usual. The painful part was getting in and out of bed. Riding a bike didn't really hurt the ribs.
But this shoulder thing has dragged on much longer than I'd have anticipated. Probably different for everyone. I see a couple other guys in the same PT clinic sessions who are nursing shoulder injuries, and even though they're younger my progress has been faster. I'm getting stronger with better muscle tone, stability, etc. It's just that darned constant aching that bugs me.
I still walk several miles a week, usually 1-3 miles at a time. I walk to the grocery store rather than taking the errand bike, and lug as much as I can carry, treating it as another PT session. I still can't carry much more than 10-15 lbs any distance on the injured shoulder, and switch off a lot between the good and bad arms.
I take a prescription oral anti-inflammatory -- diclofenac. No more ibuprofen. I have prescription pain meds but don't use them often. Lots of soaks in hot baths with epsom salts.
Lots of supplements. No idea if they actually help. I've cut back on some that didn't seem to do anything.
I cut way back on sugar and beer. Lost 10 lbs since this time last year just on those diet changes. I still use sugar in coffee and eat an occasional donut or cookie, but not often. Mostly I was curious about theories connecting sugar and alcohol with inflammation. I did feel more aches from beer, even a moderate amount of one or two a week.