Tommy John Surgery

Alan Tyson works at The EpiCenter in the Ballantyne area, located on John Delaney Road. He works closely with the doctors at Ortho Carolina.

 

No intent here in criticizing athletes for having any surgery. In fact thankful that both professional and amateurs have the possibility of continuing their aspirations via modern medicine, for without it and the advent of arthroscopic surgery in the 70’s and a double knee surgery, I would have lost my senior collegiate season which ended in both individual and team national championships.

My question is for those who have/are consulting with these specialist: would the work that these athletes do for rehab prevent elbow damage leading to TJS, or is what Dr. Andrew's is being reported as saying - that the elbow ligament has only X amount of pitches in it?

If that is the case, should there not be some new guidelines outlining what the research indicates as to the number of innings to throw weekly, number of innings to throw annually and what is appropriate rest between outings and the off season in respect to the increased number of innings athletes are playing over the past 10 years.

 

Fact or Fiction

It would be great if we could get scientific answers to the above questions so that everyone would be informed and the guessing game would end on .........why did that boy get hurt?

 

I believe Dr Andrews and his staff, including the partnership with his PT's, could give a general guideline in those areas, and I believe he has. It's the youth group that upsets him the most. He believes that is where the future injuries are occuring, and he believes the advent of year long baseball is the biggest contributor to younger arms having surgery.

6 years ago he would have 2-3 HS age pitchers that he would perform surgery on, now the bulk of his arm surgeries are this age. If one gets to know Dr Andrews, one will find that he can get very emotional discussing the travesty of all these young people having this surgery....it sickens him.

Now he is not indicting year round baseball, per se, he is indicting how young pitchers get used, after playing on several teams; sometimes at the same time, during the year.