MMI Provider's Blog

Inflammation of a joint or joints is the body’s reaction to a disease process, such as arthritis, that can cause swelling, redness, pain, and loss of motion to the affected area.  This inflammation can damage healthy structures, which in turn, can impact the function of your joints.

We only get one set of joints.  How do we best protect them from damage, especially following a diagnosis like arthritis or any other disease and/or reaction to medication that can cause inflammation to the joints? The answer, joint protection techniques. 

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Spring is sports season for many amateur athletes and weekend warriors.  It is also ankle sprain season for my practice as a foot and ankle surgeon.  Ankle sprains are the most common sports injury I treat at this time of year.  As people emerge from their winter hibernation and start to get active again, they can injure their ankles playing sports such as basketball, baseball, tennis and soccer.

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People value the use of their hands.  Any loss of function through an injury or accident can be life changing.  Treatment with a Certified Hand Therapist offers an assurance to the patient that the therapist has achieved the highest level of competency in the profession and stays up to date with practice within the field.

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As millions of avid golfers get ready for another season of pars and bogeys, they should be aware of potentially serious foot problems that can result from years of playing the game.  As the foot and ankle surgeon at MMI for the last four years, every spring, as the weather warms and more golfers take to the links, I begin to see an increase in patients, who are golfers, experiencing foot pain.

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Regular exercise won’t prevent all diseases or injuries but the simple act of moving your body can work wonders. Great things can happen to your body when you get off the couch and start moving. Let’s look at a few points that can help you start living a healthier life in 2013.

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The term Fibromyalgia stirs up a lot of emotion in patients and physicians.  Many think the term means either the patient or the physician is “crazy.”  I think neither is.  I refer to Fibromyalgia as psychological rheumatism, that true mind/body connection but the connections are not working right.  

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Trigger finger, also known as stenosing tenosynovitis, occurs when one of your fingers or thumb gets stuck in a bent position and when straightened clicks or snaps, like a trigger being pulled and released.  Symptoms can also include swelling of the finger and pain at the base of the finger or knuckle.  Trigger finger, a condition seen more often in women than men, can affect people of all ages, but is most common between the ages of 40 and 60.

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Feeling a little sore Monday morning at your computer after a weekend of leaf raking? Think you may have “tennis elbow” even though you have never played tennis? If you are tender to the touch on the outside of the elbow, have pain that limits your grip, pain that limits the ability to accept a load with the elbow extended, and/or pain that is aggravated by repetitive or forceful gripping, you may have a condition known as Lateral Epicondylitis.  More commonly known as “Tennis Elbow”, Lateral Epicondylitis primarily affects people between the ages of 35-55 and involves irritation of the muscles that control movement of the elbow and wrist.

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 With the start of the XXX Olympiad this summer, thousands of athletes from countries all over the world descended upon London for the start of what was to become a thrilling two weeks of sports spectacular. It seemed like everyone was tuned in to watch some of the worlds most famous athletes, while some were lucky enough to watch in person.

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Every spring, along with the increase in monkey bar, trampoline, and scooter injuries, I see a spike in the number of children presenting to my clinic with heel pain.  As soccer season swings into full gear along with other cleat-wearing and barefoot sports, and the physical education teachers begin the cycle of outdoor running, heel pain becomes more prevalent.  This heel pain varies in intensity from a dull ache at the end of practice or a game to a child who will toe walk  and not put his or her heel down on the ground.  Most often this is diagnosed as Sever’s Disease or, more technically, calcaneal apopyhisitis.

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