Shoulder Pain Pump True Stories

October 20th, 2009. By Hunter West

Individuals who suffer a shoulder injury, only to suffer through the pain and inconvenience of shoulder surgery should not have to bear even more suffering once the surgical repair is made. But they do. 

For the uninformed, the shoulder pain pump—like all pain pumps—is a device that makes fast work of delivering pain medication quickly and efficiently to relieve the suffering encountered by a shoulder surgery patient. And make no mistake—shoulder surgery is painful. Little wonder that doctors were looking for ways to deliver pain medication more efficiently than what oral pain meds are capable of. Doctors were also looking for a level of control that giving a patient a bottle filled with potent pain pills did not provide. 

The pain pump proved to be the answer: a device that delivered pain medication directly to the wound site through the insertion of a catheter, in a carefully controlled fashion. 

Shoulder pain pumps were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in soft tissue surrounding the shoulder. However they are NOT approved for delivering pain medication directly into the shoulder joint. The FDA, in fact rejected that indication when the pain pump manufacturers put it forward. 

They didn’t tell the doctors that. Doctors were, in fact led to believe that using pain pumps directly into the shoulder joint was safe. What they didn’t know was the effect that various cocktails of pain medications had on the precious cartilage of the shoulder joint—the cartilage that prevented the bone from rubbing together. Medication that proved toxic to cartilage. 

Cartilage is irreplaceable. Once the cartilage is gone, it’s gone and so is the shoulder. The condition is known as Post-Arthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis or PAGCL, and it’s a death sentence for the shoulder. 

There are various shoulder pain pump lawsuits in the pipeline. Their outcomes may help determine if it was greed, misinformation, lack of understanding or a combination of all three that got some people to where they are today. 

But the stories are heartbreaking. A sampling of shoulder pan pump message boards: and note that these are real people, telling real stories. 

“My husband has had three surgeries and pain pumps for all three. He is only 25 and in bad shape. We have three children and he can’t do anything with them.  Our oldest is seven and he can’t play ball with him. Our other two are little still and they like daddy to pick them up and he can’t. I have to pick them up and put them in his lap. It really sucks because when we go to bed at night he can’t hold me because laying on his shoulder hurts so bad. I am the only one that is able to work. I barely make enough money to keep us going. Plus to top it all off I have to have back surgery. Yes I am venting. I’m just tired of seeing my husband in pain both mentally and physically…” 

And here’s another…

“I have PAGCL in my shoulder resulting from the use of a pain pump in a minor surgery on my right shoulder.  

“I was 17 when I had a bicep tendon repaired with arthroscopic surgery. I was a competitive swimmer my entire life and looking into swimming for UNM, a division one school. I had a second surgery on my shoulder to in a ‘see what’s happening’ effort. This surgery did not use a pain pump but no conclusive answers were provided.  

“I am a right hand dominant person and now have lost most function of my right arm. I can no longer swim; I have lost most of my range of motion, am in constant pain and am facing a total shoulder replacement at age 20. If that is the case I will need possibly three other shoulder replacements in my lifetime. I have lost the ability to swim—a passion of mine (the loss of which) has been difficult to cope with. I am in college pursuing a degree in English and Education and am constantly plagued with the thought that I won’t be able to lift my arm to the chalkboard to write when I get my teaching job. I will not be able to carry my future children in my arms or push them on a swing.

“This crippling result of a standard and minor shoulder surgery will be with me for the rest of my life and has deeply affected my happiness and future.” 

It’s enough to make you cry. And why? So someone could make a bit more profit?

For shame…

Tags: shoulder pain pump

This was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Drugs/Medical . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.