February 2004
Ask Dr. Marks: 02/04
Subscribers Only I’m going to have hip replacement surgery next month. What can I expect to undergo or experience prior to surgery? Preparation for a total joint replacement is an important part of your overall care. It includes a complete health evaluation, laboratory studies, a nutritional assessment, a session with a physical therapist, and patient information concerning the surgery. You’ll learn about total joint replacement and why postoperative care is important in achieving good results. The physical therapist…
Ankle Stretches Reduce Risk Of Strains And Sprains
Subscribers Only Your ankle joints are the weight-bearing workhorses of your body. These low-profile constructs of bones and ligaments bend and twist more than a million times a year to help you maintain balance and stability. Keeping your ankles strong and flexible makes them better able to bear your body weight and to withstand the sudden twists and turns of exercise, or of a misstep, with less risk of a stretched or torn ligament. Here are three…
RA Combination Therapy: Worth The Aggravation
Subscribers Only Ah, for the good old days—the early 1950s, let’s say—when treating the pain and inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was a simple matter. Back then, a patient was typically advised to take 10 or 15 aspirins a day and get plenty of bed rest. Easy as that. Unfortunately, this undemanding regimen rarely succeeded in relieving chronic RA symptoms. …
Knee Osteonecrosis: When Bone Death Knocks On Your Door
Subscribers Only A diagnosis of knee osteonecrosis could understandably have you worried sick, for the term—literally meaning “bone death”—is ominous indeed. You may feel that you’ve been unfairly singled out to suffer a rare condition, that the disease is inevitably progressive, and that you are ultimately doomed. A Brighter View None of this is true. First, it is not a rare condition. It is estimated that thousands of Americans are diagnosed with osteonecrosis annually. Dr. Kenneth Marks—orthopaedic surgeon…
In the News: 02/04
Subscribers Only Celebrex Or Vioxx? It’s A Toss Up Despite some heated claims and counter-claims, selective COX-2 inhibitors celecoxib (Celebrex) and rofecoxib (Vioxx) have been found to be equally effective. This was the finding following a study by Dr. Allan Gibofsky and his colleagues at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College. The head-to-head, placebo-controlled test, reported in the November 2003 Arthritis & Rheumatism, involved 475 patients with knee osteoarthritis who were given celecoxib (200mg/day), rofecoxib (25mg/day), or a placebo.…
New Tools Ease Shoulder Repair
Subscribers Only Rotator cuff tears are one of the most common causes of shoulder pain. Whenever possible, surgeons prefer to repair such torn tendons arthroscopically, using small incisions and even smaller instruments, so that they can reduce initial trauma and speed recovery. But, for a variety of reasons—the tear may be too big, the tendon too fragile, or the procedure too technically demanding—only about 10 percent of rotator cuff repairs are done arthroscopically. (The large majority are…