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Woman's life turns topsy turvy after shoulder surgery
February 2nd, 2010 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
Whitney Moore was in prime physical condition just a few years ago. She played junior varsity soccer at West Virginia University before opening a strength and conditioning business for young athletes. In 2004, she injured her shoulder playing soccer and had surgery to repair it. But the surgery only made her shoulder worse. Moore developed a once-rare condition known as chondrolysis, in which the cartilage in the joint wears away causing bone to rub against bone.
The condition caused Moore pain and limited mobility in her shoulder, and left her little choice but to close her business. She even has to asks friends to do small chores for her, like cut the crust of a piece of pie. “Until this injury, I was in pretty prime physical condition,” Moore told the New York Times. “It’s a whole flip of my world.”
Moore is one of hundreds of victims of what a handful of studies say is a condition caused by the use of pain pumps. The devices look like balloons that are filled with anesthetic that sit outside the body. Attached to the pump are catheters that are placed in the wound site during surgery to drip painkillers in the shoulder during and after surgery. After 48-72 hours, the medication runs out and the patient simply pulls the catheter out.
Doctors were advised by pain pump manufacturers to place the catheters directly into the joint space, but what doctors later learned is that that use of pain pumps was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and was, in fact, turned down on more than one occasion for further safety studies.
Pain pump manufacturers now find themselves embroiled in a mass of lawsuits claiming they are responsible for the serious injuries, which in some cases requires total shoulder replacements and often a lifetime of pain.
