No one ever thinks about their quadriceps tendon or patella tendon until they have injured them. They are integral to human functioning for walking, climbing, standing up from a chair or the ground, and running. As an  orthopedic surgeon, I am privileged to see what unfortunately can happen to someone who tears their tendon. It makes me appreciate the human body so much more when I see the disability of this injury. A quadriceps or patella...

You step out of bed to make it to the 5:30am class and heel pain stops you dead in your tracks. That first step is excruciating, but by the time you’ve finished the warm up, the pain is alleviating. You go about your day, only to experience the same thing the next morning. Sound familiar? Symptoms of plantar fasciitis: Stiffness/pain in the morning starting at your heel and radiating to your toes Pain that gets worse when you climb stairs,...

“But I don’t play tennis”- a comment heard in sports medicine offices around the world when talking about the most common cause of elbow pain – Tennis Elbow. Lateral epicondylitis is the term that describes pain at the lateral aspect of the elbow or the part that faces forward when standing like a soldier. Medial epicondylitis is on the inner side of the elbow the part that rests against the body when standing straight. It can be the bane...

Only someone who has had an Achilles tendon tear or Achilles tendonitis can relate to how weak one feels from an injury to this all important mythological structure that is very real in the minds of CrossFitters of all ages.  Most young CrossFitters have only read stories about Achilles heels, but as we get older which seems to be a recurrent theme in 321GoMD, the tendon does not have the same elasticity and forgiveness that it used to...

The hip joint is made up of the femoral head and the acetabulum. It is a very constrained ball and socket joint where the ball fits almost perfectly in the socket.  Surrounding the socket is a fibrocartilage called the labrum.  Some hip joints develop in life without good coverage of the cup and they are said to be dysplastic. Dysplasia can occur as one develops and the socket does not deepen but stays shallow. People with dysplasia can have...

Probably the most common reason to see an orthopedic surgeon in the office visit is for an ankle sprain. Why do they happen, what happens and how can we prevent them? The ankle is a joint made up of 3 bones. The lower part of the tibia (the big bone), the inner part of the fibula (the thin small one) and the talus which is the bone that flexes and extends between the other two. This makes up what is called the mortise of the ankle where bone...

So how do we get SLAP tears? One mechanism is falling onto our shoulders, another is traction that we talked about earlier and another is repetitive stress. People will complain of clicking in that shoulder that they do not have in the other shoulder. Others will feel like something is moving around in their shoulder. They will typically point to the front and top of their shoulder right at the AC joint or sometimes even the back upper half of...