Thinking About Carving a Pumpkin?

Unfortunately, many don’t think about the safety issues surrounding this pumpkin carving season!  In addition, turkey carving for Thanksgiving or Christmas also is right around the corner and carries similar risk. As a hand surgeon, I am too often reminded of the lasting effects of quick slip of the knife during the Halloween and holiday season.

Then, there is the clean-up afterward with all the glass in the sink – who hasn’t broken a glass washing dishes after an event. There are too many important tendons, nerves, vessels, ligaments, and bones in your and your families hands that you’ll want to keep around for a long time!

Here are a few tips that can improve safety and provide an important opportunity to create safe handling habits around sharp objects.

  1. The first and most important step is to simply think about safety when using knives and when around sharp objects. I can’t tell you how many times patients come in with severe damage and describe an incident where their mind was thinking about other things. These injuries are common! If they haven’t happened to you or someone you know, you’re lucky.
  2. Do not cut toward your free hand or towards your body. Knives slip – know where it will go if it slips. Place your free hand opposite of where the knife is going.
  3. Keep knife handles dry. Pumpkin contents are slippery!
  4. The sun is not out much these days. However, that’s no excuse for a poorly lit environment – always do your holiday carving in well lit environments.
  5. Keep your knives sharp. This decreases the force needed to cut through an object. Don’t be fooled – dull knives do as much if not more damage when they come in contact with your hands.
  6. Use extreme caution with knives around children. There are many ways to participate – scooping out the pumpkin, drawing the designs. If you must have them participate, consider commercially available pumpkin carving kits which have specially designed knives which attempt to decrease injury.

Finally, if you do have an cut to your hand, place pressure on the injury and keep the arm elevated. Here are a few signs that you should seek additional help:

  • The bleeding doesn’t stop after 15 minutes of holding constant pressure.
  • You experience persistent numbness in your finger.
  • You are unable to flex or extend your finger.
  • The wound is contaminated or too large to close on its own.

If you have questions, you can always call our clinic at 206-633-8100 or respond to this blog. I will try to be prompt is my reply!  If you have an emergency, don’t hesitate to call 911 or drive to your local emergency room.

De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis

By Scott Ruhlman, M.D.

Do you experience thumb pain after repetitive activities such as knitting, gardening, or lifting your new child?

You may be experiencing a common (and treatable!) tendonitis of the thumb called De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis, which can occur in activities such as:

  • Knitting
  • Gardening
  • Playing a musical instrument
  • Lifting a child improperly (lift with your shoulders and fixed wrists, not by flexing your wrists)
  • Typing
  • Carpentry
  • Walking pets on a leash
  • Sports … read more

Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy: An Innovative Treatment for Tennis Elbow, Plantar Fasciitis

If you suffer from chronic lateral epicondylitis (“tennis elbow”) or plantar fasciitis (pain in the bottom of the heel), a new treatment is available to you onsite at the OSS Wallingford location: extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT).

What is ESWT? How does it work?

ESWT works by sending low-energy shock waves, similar to those used to treat kidney stones, to the area with the most pain – causing an interruption of the pain pathways by affecting nerves at the cellular level, and healing the degenerative process that caused the initial pain by creating new blood vessel growth.

Shock waves are generated by a device called the Sonocur Basic, which can provide treatment whether the patient is in a sitting or lying position. The shock wave head holds a kind of loudspeaker that drives acoustic pulses via a lens and a water channel, through a coupling gel on the treatment area to allow the waves to enter, to the affected area. Each treatment delivers 2,100 pulses, and the complete therapy usually requires three sessions, with a week in between each session.

What are the benefits of this treatment?

Because this treatment is performed in your physician’s office, with no need for imaging studies or anesthesia, it is less expensive than treatments in a hospital or surgery center. ESWT offers patients a non-invasive option to more traumatic traditional surgical treatments, with excellent clinical results.

Who is a good candidate for this treatment?

Patients who have had pain for at least six months and who have tried other conventional therapy methods without success are good candidates to consider treatment with ESWT.

Are there any side effects of this treatment?

ESWT may cause redness and bruising of the treated area, which typically clears within a few hours to a few days of the treatment. Some pain during and immediately after the treatment is commonly reported, as it is necessary to focus the waves directly onto the area of most pain in order for the waves to heal that area. A few patients have reported numbness and/or tingling sensations that radiate from the affected area, however these sensations have resolved without additional treatment in each case.

If you suffer from lateral epicondylitis or plantar fasciitis, make sure to discuss this treatment option with your orthopedic surgeon. You can download a Sonocur Basic brochure here, and please call our offices with any questions or to schedule a visit with one of our physicians at (206) 633-8100.

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Super Bowl’s Collarbone Fracture: A Common Orthopedic Injury

Last month, many watched Green Bay Packers star Charles Woodson sustain an injury that forced him onto the sidelines of the biggest football game of the year – Super Bowl XLV. During a fairly routine defensive play in the second quarter, Woodson, a cornerback for the Packers, dove onto the ground, landed on his right shoulder, and fractured his collarbone.

While we certainly do not have inside information on Woodson’s particular injury, OSS surgeons routinely provide treatment for collarbone fractures, one of the most commonly injured bones in the human body – and can provide the following perspective on the typical course of such injuries.

What is a Clavicle Fracture?

The clavicle, or collarbone, is the most commonly fractured bone in the body. The vast majority of clavicle fractures are completely fractured or broken, rather than partially fractured (when a bone does not completely break apart). … read more