Originally Posted by Chicago Sandy
Thanks, guys! Otterhound, my surgeon actually prescribed a multivitamin and 500 mg. of C daily, along with the painkiller I hope not to need more than 2-3 days before switching back to OTC stuff.
imwjl, we were so Reform growing up that on Saturday mornings we had bacon & eggs (bagels & smoked fish were for Sundays). My dad brought home fried shrimp & scallops on Fridays, and taught me how to eat raw oysters & cherrystone clams. Once or twice a year, we'd go out to Lundy's for lobster. My mom cooked a mean veal parmigiana. The only "treyf" she wouldn't make were pork chops--she was terrified of trichinosis, and the one time she tried to cook them they were nearly shoe leather. (I think having grown up in Kosher homes made my folks rebel).
I'm seeing a really good hand guy (the top one in the NorthShore system, who both skis and shoots hoops). But some friends on other forums asked if I'd sought a second opinion (he'd done my second trigger thumb, and is well acquainted with lymphedema risks, so I hadn't really thought about it).
When I Googled "ulnar shortening osteotomy," among all the dry medical articles and Wikis was a link that screamed "don't have barbaric ulnar shortening." Clicked on it, and it was for a chain of stem cell therapy clinics. The hucksterism was palpable--every other paragraph said "revolutionary" or "what the orthopedic community doesn't want you to know." Yes, the chain is run by M.D.s, but they are full of hooey: they claim that a "positive ulnar variance" is no big deal and that all you need to fix a TFCC tear (or any arthritis) is to withdraw some stem cells from your hip, have them purified, and then injected back into the bloodstream, where they'll somehow "know to go where the body most needs them." They also say the most effective "gold standard" therapies are done in their Cayman Islands clinic (takes 2 visits 2 weeks apart). Now, I know that while embryonic stem cells have the ability to grow into whatever doctors intend them to, adult stem cells can grow up to be only what they're taken from--IOW, more hipbone or marrow. And there's a big risk of infection and a small risk of tumor formation, acc. to Consumer Reports. And here comes the biggest telltale sign: it's not covered by insurance or Medicare because it's "experimental." (OK, so decades ago that was the case with Synvisc knee shots, but normal orthopedists--not maverick clinics--offered them; now they're standard).
Just for spits & giggles I looked up anyone in the Chicago area offering it--and to my surprise found the name of the hotshot orthopod who patched together my shattered tibial plateau 22 years ago, after a car bumper smashed it. (He later left the Rush group under strained circumstances). He now treats mostly runners and offers stem cell and plasma therapy for arthritis & athletic cartilage injuries--but only embryonic stem cells (which can morph into the cells of the tissue into which they're injected). Messaged him to see if I was a candidate (knowing his site also seemed sorta "snake-oil-y"); he wrote back that because of my age (67), the scaphoid fracture and the positive ulnar variance, stem cells wouldn't work for my TFCC tear and that I should have the surgeries instead. Imagine--honesty in a huckster!
And as to avoiding hospitals, I try to avoid being an in-patient as much as I can--the infection risk is just too great. (I had my lumpectomy at the "ambulatory-surgery unit" at Evanston Hosp.--checked in at 7am, home by 4pm). My husband was fluid-overloaded nearly into heart failure a few years ago at another hospital after being admitted for "medical management" of a botched colonoscopy (done at a GI office). And where did I fall? In a hospital corridor, walking toward the elevator to the bridge to the outpatient clinic where I see my surgeon; had I gone outside instead I wouldn't have fallen. I will be having my surgery done at an outpatient ambulatory surgi-center.
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