Blog Archive
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 2021, about one in five American adults had chronic pain. If you live with chronic pain, you may be looking for options to manage it that don’t involve medications due to your health history, the risk of addiction, other medications you take,...
Baseball is such a uniquely American sport, and for many people, it’s just part of summer. But, if you play, you’re at risk for injury — especially if you’re not especially active otherwise, or if it’s been a while since you last played, you play often, or you’re older. It’s...
Around two million ankle sprains are reported each year in the United States, and it’s a very common reason for a visit to the emergency department. However, the fact that ankle sprains are common doesn’t mean that they aren’t serious. No matter how inconvenient, it’s crucial to give your ankle...
Exercise is crucial for good physical health and it offers mental health benefits as well. The way we see it, we all have more reasons to get out and move than to be sedentary. But, active people are susceptible to injury — and that’s where a sports medicine physician comes...
Around two million adults have rotator cuff tears each year, making it a very common injury. The patients who come to Orthocenter with rotator cuff tears usually fall into two camps: those who have wear-and-tear injuries, and those who have acute, or suddenly occurring, injuries. In either case, our doctors...
You may have heard of an epidural in the context of giving birth, but one of the most common uses of epidural is to block nerve pain in cases of chronic lower back pain. It’s not an appropriate treatment in every case of lower back pain, though. Most of the...
Hundreds of thousands of people have knee replacement surgery each year, and fewer than 4% need to have another surgery, called revision surgery, to correct problems. This means that you’re likely to undergo surgery, recover, and get back to doing the things you enjoy! You probably have some questions about...
Understanding your options when you have an injury is important. At Orthocenter, our highly trained experts are careful to explain any choices you may have when it comes to treating a meniscus tear. Sometimes the best possible option is having surgery. Your meniscus is one of the many structures that...
Whether you play in a neighborhood league, you’re in school, or you participate in an individual sport like running, you probably have an off-season. And while it may be tempting to pursue a hard training schedule during that time, you’re risking injury if you do. At Orthocenter, our experts treat people who have sports...
Your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important part of how your knee remains stable when you move. Your knee joint provides an amazing range of motion, and makes it possible for you to run, jump, walk, and even sit comfortably. We see many patients with ACL injuries at Orthocenter. In some cases,...
Your pain may result from a health condition, an injury, or other reasons. Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons people in the United States seek medical care. The CDC estimates that around 50 million adults in the US have chronic pain. At Orthocenter, we seek to help...
The orthopedic surgeons and providers at Orthocenter understand that you may not be ready to have surgery. We also know that sometimes patients live with pain and discomfort for longer than they have to because they don’t want to undergo hip replacement surgery. In this blog, we look at five reasons you may want to...
One of the downsides of being active is that you’re at a greater risk for injury, or for developing a chronic condition. Knee pain is incredibly common, but it’s not inevitable. If you have any knee pain, you should get checked out by an expert who can help you understand...
Experts estimate that about 5% of the population in the United States has Dupuytren’s contracture, a condition that limits the mobility of your fingers. Researchers don’t fully understand why some people develop Dupuytren’s contracture and others don’t, but they do know what the condition sets in motion, leading to the deformity. The providers at Orthocenter are...
Most people know how low back pain feels. For those who have chronic back pain, it might be hard to remember what life is like without back pain! At Orthocenter, our outstanding providers work to help you remain as mobile as possible. We know that to live a full, active, and healthy life, you...
Dealing with any injury is difficult. Getting hurt at work adds a layer of complications. Who needs to know you were hurt? Can you go to any doctor you want, or do you need to see a one chosen by your company? Is there specific paperwork that needs to be...
Your shoulder may technically be a ball-and-socket joint, but in practice it’s really more of a ball-in-a-shallow-dish socket. The “socket” of your shoulder is almost a dip, and all of the muscles and tendons that make up your rotator cuff do the work of keeping your shoulder joint together. The providers at Orthocenter have...
As orthopedic specialists, the providers at Orthocenter are knee experts. We’ve seen plenty of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, and we know that having such an injury leads to many questions. Let’s take a closer look at what your ACL is, how it gets injured and treated, and what you...
Children and teens most commonly sustain sports injuries, largely because those age groups are most often involved in sports. However, adults who continue to be active — or become active again, after a period of inactivity — are at risk of injury as well. The expert providers at Orthocenter tend...
Experts estimate that 4 to 10 million Americans have carpal tunnel syndrome. The condition is quite painful, but it’s also usually treatable. If you’re experiencing wrist pain, numbness or tingling, or weakness in your hand, you may have carpal tunnel syndrome, but it’s important to let the expert providers at...
You may have learned in school that your shoulder joint is a ball-and-socket joint. If you could see it, you might think that “ball resting in a shallow dish” would be a more accurate description. Your rotator cuff, a group of soft tissues surrounding your shoulder joint, holds the ball...
Arthroscopy means “look at a joint” — quite literally. “Arthro” is from Greek and means joint, and “skopein” is another Greek word that means to look. If your doctor has suggested arthroscopy, they want to look at one of your joints with a tiny camera. The most common areas for...
The American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), which contains information about 1.2 million patients, was published in May 2020. The AJRR reports that 602,582 total hip procedures were performed between 2012 and 2018. In fact, hip replacements represented more than 80% of procedures in the report. If you need hip replacement,...
At Orthocenter, we frequently recommend physical therapy for our patients. Whether you’re seeing one of our experts for a sports injury, a foot and ankle issue, knee replacement, an overuse injury like carpal tunnel syndrome, or something else, you may discover that physical therapy is part of your treatment plan. ...
The bones in your lower legs and feet that carry your weight are especially susceptible to stress fractures. Stress fractures are tiny cracks in your bones, or they may be extreme bruising in your bones. In either case, they are painful. The highly qualified physicians at Orthocenter have treated numerous...
Unless you’ve lived with knee pain or suffered an injury to your knee, you probably don’t think much about how important the joint is. Your knee is, of course, important for walking and running, but also just for sitting in a chair comfortably, or getting into or out of a...
Your anterior cruciate ligament, more often called your ACL, is an important component in keeping your knee joint stable. It’s one of four tough fibers that snugly hold the bones of your knee together. At Orthocenter, we understand that exercise is an important factor in maintaining your health, and we...
Whether you’re a weekend warrior or you train more seriously, you have a higher risk of a groin pull or strain than someone who doesn’t work out or play sports. Groin pulls are both common and painful. At Orthocenter, our skilled experts provide sports medicine services, and those services include...
Your shoulder is a ball-and-socket joint, much like your hip. Of course, if you think about how your hip moves versus how your shoulder moves, you realize there are some big differences. Your arm’s range of motion is enormous compared with the range of motion in your hip. That’s largely...
Your hip joints are amazing. They’re strong enough to bear your body weight while also allowing for surprising mobility. Your hip joints are similar to your shoulder joints in that all four are ball-and-socket joints, but the sockets of your hip joints are deeper than the sockets of your shoulder...
Stress fractures are most common in the bones of your feet and legs, and as the name suggests, they’re tiny cracks. Athletes, people who suddenly change their level of activity, and people in the military who carry heavy packs over long distances are all at an increased risk of stress...
Your risk of getting injured at work depends largely on what kind of job you have. A person who works on the floor in a warehouse faces significantly different risk of injury than a person who sits at a desk most of the day. Regardless of your job, however, you...
Your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is an important component when it comes to keeping your knee stable. Injuries of this tough, fibrous ligament are common, especially in adolescent athletes, although anyone can hurt their ACL under the right conditions. The expert providers at Orthocenter have treated thousands of ACL injuries,...
The medical name for a knee replacement is arthroplasty. About 1 in 10 Americans will need a knee replacement by the time they’re 80 years old. If you’re one of them, you may be wondering how you know it’s time. The experts at Orthocenter understand that undergoing knee replacement can...
Lateral epicondylitis, lateral epicondylosis, or lateral elbow tendinopathy are a few of the names you may hear for what is commonly called tennis elbow. It’s a form of tendinitis, and it affects the outside of your elbow. More specifically, tennis elbow harms the extensor tendon, which is responsible for straightening...
People who play sports that involve jumping, quick turns, and sudden stops are at a greater risk of two common knee injuries. Meniscus tears and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears occur among athletes, and though they share some similarities, they are different injuries. At Orthocenter, our team of health care...
Ankle sprains are a common injury, especially among people who play sports, walk or run on uneven surfaces, are in poor physical condition, or who have had prior ankle injury. You should know the possible consequences of repeated ankle sprains, as well as how you can avoid spraining your ankle...
If you’re a baseball fan, you know just how often players have rotator cuff injuries. You, on the other hand, don’t go through life throwing fastballs (probably), so you’re not at risk for a shoulder injury, right? The experts at Orthocenter see more rotator cuff tears than you likely imagine....
More than 450,000 total hip replacement surgeries are performed annually in the United States, and that number is expected to grow. The vast majority of these procedures are effective and successful, but if you’d prefer to avoid a hip replacement, perhaps you can with careful attention to a few key...
You probably don’t think about your heels very often. But if you develop pain in one of your heels, you may find it’s all you can think about! Chronic heel pain makes it difficult to do the things you need to do and enjoy doing. It can make it difficult...
Knee injuries can be complicated, but one of the most common types our experts at Orthocenter see is the meniscus tear. Regardless of the overall treatment approach that’s most appropriate for you, you’re most likely going to need rehabilitation to allow your torn meniscus to heal properly. Meniscus tears: How?...
No matter your place on the athletic scale, when springtime rolls around, you’re probably at a higher risk of injury. The specialists at Orthocenter are well-versed in sports medicine, but we’d prefer that you avoid injury, so here are a few tips to help you prevent a sports-related injury this...
Whether you’re recovering from surgery or an injury, or you have a chronic condition such as arthritis, you have pain. In fact, some 40-50 million Americans live with chronic pain. At Orthocenter, our staff understands that pain management is a critical part of a successful treatment or recovery plan. ...
Getting hurt is stressful. Getting hurt at work is even more stressful. Having a health care team dedicated to helping you recover can ease some of that stress and allow you to focus more on your recovery. At Orthocenter, our providers are well-acquainted with workplace injuries, and we understand the...
When you stop and think about how your joints function, and all of the things they allow your body to do, it’s pretty amazing. From the larger ones, like your knees and shoulders, to the smaller ones in your feet and hands, joints let your body move smoothly. If you...
On any given day in the United States, approximately 20% of adults — or one in five Americans — experience some form of chronic pain. What’s more, nearly half of people with chronic pain have the high-impact type, meaning their condition is so draining, undermining, or debilitating that it limits...
Persistent hip pain and stiffness could signal something far more severe. These symptoms may point to a worn-out hip joint, advanced osteoarthritis, or they might indicate another issue. There’s no set of rules that come with a hip replacement, and it is important to consider conservative treatment options before electing...
When it comes to ankle injuries, most people have heard of ankle sprains, strains, tendinitis, and fractures, but often don’t know the difference. If you’ve twisted your ankle and it hurts, get it checked out by a doctor immediately. Repeated injuries can lead to prolonged pain and chronic ankle instability....
Your ACL, or anterior cruciate ligament, is a key ligament in your knee. This is easy to damage if you play sports. Considering that it can also take you as long as a year to resume playing sports after an ACL injury, you can see how serious this condition is...
Fibromyalgia is a condition that is often difficult to diagnose and manage. People living with fibromyalgia often experience chronic, widespread pain. The condition may gradually develop with no identifiable trigger, or it may develop after infection, surgery, or physical injury. If you’re trying to cope with the pain of fibromyalgia...
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition in which the nerve in the channel of your wrist gets compressed. While men and women can develop this condition, women are three times more likely to do so. Carpal tunnel syndrome usually develops slowly, and the symptoms can go unnoticed for some time....
If you live with pain on a daily basis, you’re not alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 11-40% of Americans suffer from chronic pain. Unfortunately, chronic pain is a complicated affliction. There isn’t even a consensus as to when pain is deemed to be chronic. Depending...
For most of us — and probably all of us — our hands play a central role in our lives, making light work of a multitude of varying tasks throughout the day. When one or both hands are injured, we need to do something — fast — to restore function,...
Playing sports is not only fun, but it is also an excellent way to maintain your physical fitness. Unfortunately, playing sports also makes you more likely to sustain injuries. To avoid these injuries, you need to take the proper precautions at all times. What sports injuries are most common? You...
Neck and back pain are among the most common medical complaints for both men and women, and because both types of pain tend to be chronic and recurrent, keeping symptoms at bay can be problematic. Pain medication may provide some relief, but to keep symptoms from coming back, many people...
Most medical procedures today have slowly built upon past knowledge and studies to get better and more effective, but only a few times in a generation do we see major medical research breakthroughs that change everything for people suffering from certain diseases. Just like the polio vaccine or penicillin stopped life-long suffering...
An anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is a common one, especially for those people who engage in sports, such as football, basketball, soccer, tennis, running, or downhill skiing. The ACL is one of four ligaments in the knee that stabilize and hold the bones of your knee in place, and...
Maybe you played basketball in your college days, or you’ve always enjoyed running as a form of exercise or as a tension-reliever after a hard day at the office. Basketball and running are just two of the many reasons you may need knee replacement surgery, after years of wear-and-tear on...
From throwing a baseball to waving hello to lifting heavy objects, shoulders make it possible to perform a wide variety of tasks. Sometimes, however, a sudden injury or repetitive movement can damage the muscles and tendons in your shoulder, resulting in a torn rotator cuff. In many cases, these issues...