Two doctors present on sports medicine and preventing injuries.
Update: They are discussing labrum tears, specifically in Jacob Ellsbury.
Update: Tough to predict multiple shoulder dislocations.
Update: Dr. Geary seems to think the Nationals are making the right call on Stephen Strasburg.
Update: Dr. Evangelista discusses imaging and throwing mechanics.
Update: Pitching from a young age changes the shoulder to allow more rotation backwards.
The New York Times takes a more in depth look at the use of Toradol in sports to lessen pain. One doctor shares my concern:
“The limit I’m worried about is, does it dull the pain so much that it dulls the body part they’ve injured?” said Carla C. Keirns, a doctor and medical ethicist at Stony Brook University, adding that athletes could be prone to reinjury because the warning signs of pain are muted.
NFL players brought suit that this drug made concussions worse. I suspect we’ll be hearing more about this drug now that this is out in the open.
Bartolo Colon underwent stem-cell therapy to repair his elbow and rotator cuff:
A doctor in Florida would like to take some of the credit. Joseph R. Purita, an orthopedic surgeon who runs a regenerative medicine clinic in Boca Raton, said he and a team of Dominican doctors that he led treated Colon in April 2010. Purita said he employed what he regards as one of his more pioneering techniques: he used fat and bone marrow stem cells from Colon, injecting them back into Colon’s elbow and shoulder to help repair ligament damage and a torn rotator cuff.
Purita said he flew to the Dominican Republic and performed the procedures for free, doing it at the behest of a medical technology company based in Massachusetts that he has done business with for several years. Purita, who has used human growth hormone in such treatments, said in an interview that that he had not done so in Colon’s case. The use of human growth hormone is banned by baseball.
“This is not hocus-pocus,” Purita said in an interview here. “This is the future of sports medicine, in particular. Here it is that I got a guy back playing baseball and throwing pitches at 95 miles an hour.”
The article seems too focuses on whether the doctor used HGH. If this actually worked, if he used Bartolo’s own cells to regenerate an injured part of his body, this is huge. Maybe pitchers won’t need Tommy John surgery anymore, just an injection and time. That has to be better for everyone.
I find it interesting that if a player undergoes surgery to fix an injury, no one considers it performance enhancing, but if you inject something to do the same thing, people get in a tizzy.
The Phillies offer a nice example of the Placebo Effect. Which reminds me of this:
[ seriously ] But I quit that! I’ve quit ALL drugs. Well… let me say one thing: I twisted my ankle this morning, and I was in quite a bit of pain… so I went to the doctor, and I asked him to give me some pain pills. And he didn’t want to do it, but I talked him into it. So he gave me some pills — and I shouldn’t have done this, but I took some about an hour before the show tonight, and right now… I am high… as a KITE! [ audience cheers ] I mean, it is unbelievable! And I would NEVER say this to you people, but, in this case: if you EVER get a chance, to take these drugs… DO IT! They’re called… [ he glances from side-to-side cautiously ] Placebos! I mean, I’m thinking that right now I have NO idea where I am at all! It is WILD! Placebo!
I hear quite often how players today are very careful about what they eat and how much they exercise, but they’re more than willing to take part in quack treatments. Unbelievable.
Lookout Landing does a quick study on the effects of LASIK surgery on hitters, and find in mildly helpful.