European shoulder master Hangzhou teaches: Shoulder dislocation before 25 years old, must be actively treated
Lie flat, turn over, yawn. For ordinary people, these actions are commonplace. However, for the 23-year-old Shangyu boy Fan, each action is full of risks. Because, if he is not careful, his left shoulder will be dislocated. Xuesong Dai, Department of Orthopedics, Second Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine
Xiaofan’s problem has more than a year of “history”. Initially, it was an inadvertent pull, and at that time, both he and the doctor back home thought it was a minor problem. The doctor’s hand restored it. Playing ball and lifting heavy objects seemed to be unaffected.
However, as the days went by, Fan noticed that something was wrong with his left shoulder: when he moved a little more, his shoulder drooped down – it was dislocated. He moved the shoulder a little, and then automatically reset.
In the last six months, even when sleeping, the shoulder would be dislocated, most often when he was lying down or lying on his left side.
Does the dislocation hurt? The reporter asked him.
Fan wanted to shrug his shoulders and held back: it hurts, but it’s bearable.
”How did you get this problem when you don’t even have a girlfriend yet?” His sister advised him to go to a big hospital to have a look.
He came to the second hospital affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Dr. Xuesong Dai, the chief physician, found that Fan’s shoulder glenoid labrum was injured, and there was also a large bone defect.
What is glenoid labrum?
Dr. Xuesong Dai, chief physician of the Department of Orthopedics of Zhejiang University, told the reporter that as the joint with the largest range of motion, the rotation of the shoulder joint mainly relies on the glenoid labrum to “hold” the joint.
Fan is a young man who has been in the military, and he is puzzled by this: why has my shoulder become so weak?
Yesterday, W. Jaap Williams, president of the European Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Association from the Netherlands and a master of shoulder arthroscopy, gave Fan the answer in Hangzhou: the first shoulder dislocation before the age of 25, if not handled well, the recurrence rate is more than 80-90% because of the injury and poor healing of the glenoid labrum. For such a patient, the European doctor’s opinion is very clear: surgical repair is needed.
Fan was also lucky enough to be a “live patient” at the Zhejiang Shoulder Summit.
Yesterday morning, Williams and Dr. Xuesong Dai, chief physician of the Department of Orthopedics at Zhejiang Medical Second Hospital, performed a reconstructive repair of the bone defect and glenoid labrum of the left shoulder joint for Fan.
The reporter saw in the operating room, Fan lying on his side on the operating table, his left hand was held up high, the doctors through the arthroscope, after punching three small holes, began to inject saline into the joint, after the space at the joint was expanded by saline, began to repair in the “screw shell”.
Williams says that repairing the labrum is a delicate task, the main thing being to use these fine, high-weight-bearing wires to tighten the labrum back to its pre-injury state by placing small, specially made wire staples in the shoulder joint.
An hour and a half later, the surgery was completed. Fan, who was still asleep under anesthesia, was left with only three small wounds on his shoulder, “and in a day or two, he will be discharged from the hospital!” Xuesong Dai said.
”Williams represents the high level of surgical treatment for the shoulder joint in Europe. And in China, such surgical treatment is still emerging. Today, a hundred orthopedic surgeons from the province are here. “We hope to introduce these master doctors, the most advanced theories, to Chinese doctors through surgical demonstrations.” The most important thing, said Xuesong Dai, is that there are very many patients like Fan, but they have been waiting there, “both doctors, and patients, need to update their ideas.”
Professor Williams is known to have been concerned with the shoulder joint since 1985 and has been involved in all shoulder surgeries at Alkmaar Medical Center in the Netherlands, and has been performing shoulder arthroscopy since 1989.