NFL Dreams Dashed by Shoulder Pain Pump

Blue Ash, OHHe said his doctor told him that it was akin to throwing acid on a painted wall. Analogies aside, Matthew McKeown is a young man with a dream in tatters after a shoulder pain pump manufactured by I-FLOW used after a shoulder injury is alleged to have destroyed his shoulder.

His dream was to play in the National Football League (NFL)—and with the capacity for a top bench press of 460 pounds and bench-pressing 225 pounds for 32 reps, the hardy 23-year old was a strong prospect for a career in the NFL.

Instead he could be facing a shoulder replacement procedure costing upwards of a quarter of a million dollars. Based on his age, he could be facing more than one.

According to a report posted on Cincinnati.com, McKeown was an all-city player at Sycamore and had earned a football scholarship to Miami. A starting right guard in his sophomore year, McKeown injured his left should in October 2006 trying to recover a fumble.

The ON-Q-PainBuster, a shoulder pain pump manufactured by I-FLOW, was brought in as part of his rehab. The device, according to the report on Cincinnati.com, fed pain medication directly to his shoulder.

McKeown rehabbed successfully, he says, in spite of shoulder pain that continued to dog him. And while he was packing on muscle and growing stronger, it so happened that he re-injured the same shoulder during the first play of the following football season.

The I-FLOW shoulder pain pump was brought in for a second round of supplying pain meds directly to the shoulder.

Not long after, when McKeown's doctor did an MRI scan on the young man's shoulder, "he was horrified by what he saw," the budding football star said.

A lawsuit McKeown has launched against the manufacturer of the shoulder pain pump cites I-FLOW for failing to warn doctors of the risks associated with feeding pain medication directly into the shoulder joint, rather than the surrounding tissue. According to the text of the lawsuit, the delivery of pain medication directly to a shoulder joint was not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

FDA approval of the shoulder pain pump only allows pain medication to be delivered directly to soft tissue surrounding the shoulder joint. It has been found that when pain medication is fed directly to the shoulder joint, cartilage breaks down over time. Once cartilage is gone, it's gone.

In McKeown's case, the MIRI revealed that his left shoulder was so badly frayed it looked like wavy hair.

"It's hard for me to put into words how devastating this was," said McKeown of Blue Ash.

"When (the doctor) used words like 'disability' and 'multiple shoulder replacements,' my heart sank."

A lawsuit against I-FLOW was filed April 25th in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. The suit accuses I-FLOW representatives of encouraging doctors to insert the pump's catheter into the shoulder joint instead of the muscle—even when I-FLOW knew or should have known that it destroys cartilage in the process.

According to the lawsuit, I-FLOW is alleged to have known about a 2006 study that revealed nearly two-thirds of those who received pain medication directly to the joint, rather than to soft tissue around the joint, suffered devastating loss of cartilage.

However, the lawsuit alleges, I-FLOW failed to contact doctors about the concern. The manufacturer is also accused of actively promoting the product for a use that was never approved by the FDA.

McKeown, who has completed his public administration and management degrees, will work for an insurance company now that he has permanently parked any aspirations of playing in the NFL. He launched the lawsuit, he says, to warn others.