jamvan wrote: Acrobat wrote:One shot in each knee = two shots, thus plural?
And this leads to a rumored trade for an almost-washed-up goalie?
Has anyone really watched him move on the ice - is/was it any different than last year? This would be the telling sign. MCL/ACL would be the likely injury, and if he really needed surgery, I can't imagine they wouldn't have encouraged him to do it in the summer, so he could rehab properly - goalies put a ton of strain on both of those ligaments, as well as the hips. Even a minor strain and he won't have the ability to pop up from a butterfly properly and to power across the net.
I don't agree with that. Fisher and Alfie both should have gotten surgery for their injuries, but opted out. It happens everyday that athletes opt out of surgery. Just look at how long it took Tiger to go for it.
You are misunderstanding what I said - I was pointing out that the team would have encouraged him to have the surgery done in the summer, so as not to rush him back (he is a key player). This is always preferable to surgery in-season to a critical member of the team.
In your examples, the players didn't opt not to have surgery, but opted to delay surgery until a time when it was more appropriate. They waited until summer (Alfie, Fisher), or until after the US Open (Woods). In the case of Alfie & Fisher, they then had the time to recover, but in the meantime, I would guarantee that they were getting shots of cortisone at some point.
rooneypoo wrote:I agree there. Cortisone is nasty stuff, easing the pain and convincing your body that there's no problem, which in turn tricks you into going back to your usual routine and further injuring / straining the muscle / ligament in question.
Cortisone does nothing (directly) for pain. It is used purely for its anti-inflammatory activity, in these cases. It is the inflammation that is causing the pain, through the release of a bunch of different chemicals (I won't go into the entire pathway). The flip-side of this is that inflammation itself can also accelerate the destruction of the tissue, including the damaged tissue, so there is a fine balance between allowing the required healing to proceed (this can be slowed with cortisone), and stopping the inflammation. It's great for arthritic patients, who generally don't go out and play hockey once you've injected their shoulder. For the 30-yr old with a shoulder injury, the justification becomes harder, and the restrictions are stricter.
You are correct in implying that sometimes physicians use cortisone a little too quickly; however it definitely has its place. For the general public, the key is to do just what you did - physio/rehab. For elite athletes, their livelihood depends on getting back into the game, so often they will be willing to accept the long term risks for the shorter and medium term benefits.
C'est la vie.
(and that's all for Physiology 101. Stay tuned tomorrow for Physiology 201....)
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