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One of the fastest growing areas of litigation in Ohio are pain pump/chondrolysis cases. Young athletes who have had shoulder surgery are finding out that the cartilage in their surgical shoulder is now destroyed due to the use of a pain pump following surgery.
The manufacturers of pain pumps rushed their product into the hands of orthopaedic surgeons for use in pain control after surgery. Doctors were told that they would get fewer post surgery phone calls about pain. What these companies, such as Breg and I-Flow, neglected to tell the doctors was that by inserting a pain pump directly into the joint space and infusing the cartilage with pain medicine for up to four days, they were destroying the cartilage. Cartilage is the smooth covering over the bones in a joint that makes movement of the joint smooth and easy.
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By destroying the cartilage, the movement of the joint becomes painful. As more and more cartilage is destroyed, movement of the upper arm becomes difficult. At some point, these victims will probably require shoulder replacement surgery.
Ohio law does provide for compensation for victims of medical device manufacturers. These pain pumps should never have been promoted for intra-articular use (directly in the joint space) without adequate testing. Nearly every study done recently confirms that continuous infusion of marcaine and lidocaine on the surface of the cartilage causes cell death, resulting in cartilage destruction and permanent injury. There are more and more of these cases moving through Ohio courts. The dual purpose of Ohio tort law is to compensate the victims of faulty products and hold the wrongdoer accountable.
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