Another Tommy John Surgery

redsox,

I am truly sorry to hear of your son's injury. Here is hoping for a complete recovery and a successful return to the bump once his rehab is complete.

quote:

Dr said it was likely he was throwing too hard for his arm to handle especially if there could have been a slight mechanical flaw involved.

That sounds very similar to what our son's surgeon said about his injury. Is your son more slightly built than bulky? Our son is still on the very skinny side (6'4" 160 or so), and the heaviest he was was during basketball where he got close to 170. Doc said that that may have played a bigger part than mechanics.

Again, the very best of luck to your son, and hopes for a 100% recovery.

27"sDad,

My son was very close to that 6' 3" and 170lbs. And that is as a 15yr old. He is a lefty and was touching 84-85mph as well. Had a jump of 7mph this past season plus grew a couple of inches with little weight gain.

Sorry to hear of your son...

I would strongly suggest you purchase PREVENTIVE & REHABILITATIVE EXERCISES FOR THE SHOULDER & ELBOW, 6th Edition. It's written by "Jimmy" and his staff and will give you the blueprint for rehab and throwing program.

Currently, my son is trying to rehab from a 50% UCL tear. One director of scouting told him, "Don't worry if you have TJ surgery, it won't hurt your draft status. We consider that injury fully recoverable."

CPLZ, I'll add my condolensces to you and to Kirk. At this point he's hit both the big low spots. From here on out, let's hope it's all to the good side.

redsox
i'm very sorry to hear this. always thought a big reason for the tear was the body not ready to throw hard. but what do i know.


i know dr andrews has a very extensive list of qualified rehab facilities all over. he made us an appointment next door to my shop, i never knew they were there. i'll try and dig up some info for you.

looks like you can ask about it on this site. i'm still digging. http://asmiforum.proboards.com/index.cgi

quote:

Originally posted by CPLZ:
Sorry to hear of your son...

I would strongly suggest you purchase PREVENTIVE & REHABILITATIVE EXERCISES FOR THE SHOULDER & ELBOW, 6th Edition. It's written by "Jimmy" and his staff and will give you the blueprint for rehab and throwing program.

Currently, my son is trying to rehab from a 50% UCL tear. One director of scouting told him, "Don't worry if you have TJ surgery, it won't hurt your draft status. We consider that injury fully recoverable."

CPLZ,
Just saw this, so sorry to hear the news.

Redsox,
I am sorry to hear that about your son as well, however not sure that throwing too hard is the main culprit. Mechanics, could be. More than likely a combination of many things.

TPM

The DR noted that a law in the mechanics of the young pitcher may have been part of the problem

My son went to his first PT on thursday. The Therapist did a strength test on his left shoulder and found it to be very very weak. Said it was likely that he was favoring his shoulder unconsciously and lowering his elbow to do so which led to his eventual UCL tear. So the weak shoulder led to a mechanical flaw that led to his UCL tear. Funny thing is he mentioned that my son likely had an inconsistent arm slot and boy was that correct...just never knew why..do now!! Said that should correct itself after building up the muscles in the shoulder with all the rehab so it can handle it in the future.

So he is doing the Sox throwers 10 program to build up the shoulder before the TJ surgery so once that rehab starts the shoulder will be better conditioned for it. I think he learned a valuable yet expensive lesson that he needs to exercise his arm and the rest of his body the rest of his athletic life.

If any young kids or parents of pitchers read this I strongly suggest that you google the "throwers 10" exercises and have the player do them every other day religiously so that the arm can handle the stress of pitching. I was so careful with pitch counts and number of innings thrown but that didn't matter as he took his arm and shoulder strength for granted and it broke down leading to TJ surgery, even when taking care of the other controllable variables.

Not sure of the history of the Thrower's 10,

But the 1st guy I remember (after Koufax, Marshall and Jobe) that taught and showed us arm dumbell exercises for the baseball player was Mark Davis, with the Phillies.

And, who became a NL Cy Young Award winner in 1989 (and with 44 saves for the Padres).
Davis also pitched 18 years in the bigs.

His approach was 7 vital arm exercises and remain
in use today.

CaDad,

The jump in the velocity was a component I'm sure. I know it wasn't the number of innings or a pitch count issue as that was monitored and was never close to an issue. So the variables I could watch and try to control were taken care of. The arm care was an issue because he thought he was in good enough shape as a 3 sport athlete and didn't need to use the bands I got him or the rice bucket or the hand weights, no matter how often I would discuss it with him. His mom and I are divorced so he isn't with me every day so I couldn't monitor that part. Had he been doing a throwers 10 type of program maybe his body handles the jump in velocity better and he doesn't break down.

So my point is if you can teach your player at an early age to do the exercises (you use tubing and 2-5 lb weights..so nothing major)you can at least feel like you did everything you could to keep him from breaking down, arm strength care, innings, pitch count etc.... Usually this injury is caused by overuse but in my son's case it was a physical breakdown due to a weak shoulder leading to a breakdown in mechanics and the added stressor of the big jump in velocity. His UCL didn't stand a chance!!

Just as a light at the end of the tunnel, surgery was Jan. 13 and son will be throwing first bullpen this week. 15 pitcthes after through warmup. He is older(22) so not sure how that affects re-hab schedule differences. Good luck to your son. Follow rehab plan like a religion, do not force anything

Kjktj,

After reading all the tommy john related threads on here I do realize that you can not rush the rehab. Follow it religiously and patiently wait till the time to advance comes..no matter how good my son may feel. We figure 2011 doesn't exist sports wise so all focus is on hitting the ground running in March 2012.

I hope all goes well for your sons first bullpen!!! He must be excited!!

redsox8191 Sorry to hear about your sons injury! Please keep in mind that the success rate for TJ surgery is quite good! I recently read that something like 9 out of 10 players are able to come back from this surgery. The success rate is much better than surgery to the shoulder. Many actually increase velocity after returning. This is normally attributed to strictly following the prescribed rehab schedule. This includes many aspects, Physical therapy, strength training, improved mechanics, a strict throwing program. etc. One thing which I think is sound advice is not to rush things and follow the program which gives the best road to success. Best of luck to your son! Lets hope he comes back throwing even better than before!

Well my son had surgery yesterday but it wasn't his Tommy John surgery. The MRI (with dye) had shown a foreign body floating around and a chunk broken off in the cartilage. So before we could do the Tommy John this needed to be corrected. They went in and took out the foreign body (about 1 1/2 cm in size) and scraped down all the frayed cartilage and removed the damaged part. They then went and drilled holes in the cartilage down to the bone (humerus) so that the blood and marrow could leak out and form a protective layer to fill the hole...basically a controlled scar tissue. He will be using a continuous motion machine for the next few weeks while sleeping to keep his range of motion in the elbow and to keep the fluids flowing to the damaged area to nourish the area and allow the scar tissue to become strong.

The down side is the actual TJ surgery gets pushed off till Christmas break to allow this to heal properly. I think at times this is the world's slowest TJ situation ever. Usually you tear it and within a week you're doing surgery...lol. This will be a 4 1/2 month lag between the tear and finally having the surgery. But the surgeon wants to do it once and give my son the best chance of a full recovery and that meant 6 weeks of pre-procedure rehab to build up the shoulder before even correcting the elbow which unfortunately is taking 2 surgeries (fix the cartilage & TJ) to correct. It is frustrating for my son as he obviously wants to get back on the field as soon as possible but he is starting to realize that this is the best way for HIM to come back as best as possible and with luck he will take the mound for his junior year (2012). Here in NH that doesn't start till March so that will be 15 months after the TJ surgery so he has a good shot of being ready to start the season if he puts in the work rehab wise.

great news,so glad the operation went well. i can't imagine sleeping with that machine.

too bad it pushed the tj back though. as they say ,things happen for a reason. it may be awhile before that reason is known. tell him to keep his head up and keep moving forward. it will be over before he knows it.

Junior started throwing yesterday for the first time since last April.

Fingers crossed...

Here is a good article about Redsox prospect Drake Britton who made it back 10 months after Tommy John feeling and throwing better than before the injury.

http://news.soxprospects.com/2...h-drake-britton.html

good luck to your son cplz...did he have TJ surgery or did he do rest and rehab since April. My son had TJ surgery in July and will start his throwing program Friday...
Fingers Crossed for him too.

quote:

Originally posted by hisbiggestfan:
good luck to your son cplz...did he have TJ surgery or did he do rest and rehab since April. My son had TJ surgery in July and will start his throwing program Friday...
Fingers Crossed for him too.

My son is a senior at West Point. When they saw that he had a significant tear in his UCL in April of his Junior year, his only option was to rest, build up opposing (Scap) muscles to help deceleration, and cross his fingers. There is no redshirting at a Military Academy, so this is it.

Thanks for your well wishes, and I wish your son all the luck in the world on his road back. Junior came all the way back from labrum surgery after his frosh year, so I know how difficult the rehab road can be.

Its been tough, he is a freshman in college so he will redshirt this season and start fresh next fall if all goes well. Best of luck again and early congrats for Jr graduating from West Point...hopefully graduation will follow a great Sr baseball season for him.

CPLZ
Good luck to your son. When will he find out where he will be stationed or which division he goes to. I like it when I watch Army's football games and can tell by the patches.

quote:

Originally posted by LJ3813:
CPLZ
Good luck to your son. When will he find out where he will be stationed or which division he goes to. I like it when I watch Army's football games and can tell by the patches.

Actually, the patches on football uniforms are purely symbolic and have nothing to do with where they will go or what their jobs will be.

WP just had branch night, where the cadets choose which specialty they wish, about 3 weeks ago. Junior chose Ordnance and will sub branch into EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, defusing bombs and IED's. WP will have post night in January where the cadets choose which post they want to serve their first three years of duty at and that determines which unit they will be assigned to.

Thanks for your well wishes.

CPLZ

Good luck to your son. I hope the rest and rehab will be enough to allow him to perform throughout his senior season!!

hisbiggestfan

Good luck to your son as he starts up his throwing program off of TJ surgery.

Son is chomping at the bit to finally have his performed on the 23rd...then the real rehab begins!!

Thanks! So far so good... 1st session went well no pain and he only bounced 2 and hit his trainer in the shin once lol. Just a very "normal" and uneventful catch but to him very satisfying since it was the first one in almost 6 months.