Shoulder Pain Pumps Can Cause Greater Damage
Thursday, July 24, 2008
WBIR.com, on July 24, 2008 posted an article on it’s website discussing numerous patients who had surgery to repair dislocated shoulders and the injuries they suffered after shoulder pain pumps were used to control their pain after surgery.28-year-old Erika Creech has gotten used to lifting her daughter with one arm. In 2004, Creech learned she had no cartilage in her left shoulder joint, just bone against bone. "It started grinding and clicking and not working. And I had a lot of pain with it," said Creech. Her problems began several months after an operation to fix a dislocated shoulder.
31-year-old George Limantzakis had the same surgery with the same results. "The pain just started escalating months after the first surgery. The pain is constant. 24 hours," said Limantzakis.
George and Erika's surgeon x-rayed their shoulders and told them they were among a dozen of his patients who had lost their cartilage. In some cases, the bone itself had deteriorated. After reviewing the cases, Dr. Charles Beck realized they all had one thing in common. "The use of a post-operative pain pump catheter."
These pain pumps feed medicine into the body to reduce pain after surgery. New models had just come out that gave patients a lot more medicine. Dr. Beck had used them in 16 patients, and 13 lost their cartilage.
"Thought in good faith we were doing something to help our patients' pain and we actually created a far worse problem," said Beck. After realizing the connection, a colleague of Dr. Beck's emailed one of the pump companies about the problems. Dr. Beck published medical research to warn other doctors.
Posted in Medical Devices • Shoulder Pain Pump Injury