- May 10, 2016
Too much, too hard, too fast. Millions of weekend warriors will end up at the doc’s office. This year, the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt. I couldn’t walk at all without severe pain backs, knees, shoulders, ACLs, hips, all pushed to the extreme and exhausted. Tim Acevedo was more comfortable on two wheels and two feet until the competitive cyclist was literally thrown off his game. And I was coming down the hill and I hit a bump that I didn’t see, so throw me up in the air and I landed on my shoulder and my hands first and that popped the shoulder.
Number one, the bone breaks, but number two, the core vehicular ligaments tear.
Traditional suture repair failed just one week after surgery. Then Tim met Emory sports medicine specialist, Dr. Spiro Karas, one of the only US surgeons doing clavicle repair with a European device called the subacromial hook plate.
It goes underneath the acromion here and actually pushes the clavicle back down.
Implanted during surgery, studies showed the hook plate stabilizes the joint during healing. Three months post-op Tim’s shoulder was stable enough to remove the plate. Now he’s back on two wheels. My shoulder is very relaxed. My range of motion has increased tremendously and the strength is coming back quickly as well. It probably won’t be Tim’s last sports injury, cycling, running, tennis and golf are the sports with the most injuries for people over 40 from avid athletes to those who work out just a few times a week. Our knees take the most abuse. The average knee bends about 5,000 times a day at running five miles three times a week. That adds up to 1.7 million knee bends a year. That’s why half of all 45-year-olds will end up with a knee problem before they’re 65. When my knee got really painful while I was walking or hiking.
If there’s a 14,000-foot mountain anywhere in the US, Gary Starnes has seen the top of it. There’s a real feeling of accomplishment, but arthritis in his right knee stopped this avid mountain climber in his tracks. Traditionally, doctors would replace the entire joint, but now orthopedic surgeons are turning to a partial knee replacement, so his problem is on the inside of the joint. Outpatient partial knee replacement surgery is shorter and less invasive than a total knee. Now we just treat or I just treat arthritis. I basically take a minimal bone from both of the thigh bone or femur and tibia or shinbone and replace it with metal, cement, and plastic patients are able to walk without crutches or a cane. Two weeks after surgery, six months after surgery, Gary was able to climb without pain. Just glad I was able to do it. Now, there is nothing stopping this climber, this cyclist, or you from pushing your limits, pain-free. I’m Andrew McIntosh reporting.