Update on Brian's elbow

He went to a new doctor yesterday. At this point in time, his condition has been diagnosed as tendinosis. Unlike tendinitis, which is an inflammation of the tendon and is normally fairly quick to heal, tendinosis is a degenerative condition of the tendon. Basically, the nice straight strong fibers of collagen become a tangled mess of strings with little pockets of "jelly" and small weak blood vessels. Tendinosis is a more difficult problem to heal with only an 80% chance of resolving. Typical tendinosis can take anywhere from 8 weeks to 9 months to resolve depending on how long a person has had the problem. He's been having problems with it since last summer and started physical thearpy on his tendons in Januray with a treatment called ASTYM (http://www.astym.com/)which sets out to inflame the injured area so that the body responds with a higher blood flow to the area which is supposed to speed healing and rejuvenate the tendons. It has a fairly high success rate, but unfortunately he did not respond to the treatment
and has been referred to TOSH, an Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, to see a sports medicine specialist about the problem. He went there yesterday and they took x-rays and did not see any problems with his bones, which is good. He goes in for a series of ultrasounds next Monday and then after that they want to start him on a program of Platelet Rich Plasma injections. This is kind of the middle ground between traditional physical therapy and surgery. With this treatment, they take some of his blood and create a platelet concentrate that is injected back into the area of his pain causing "an inflammatory and healing cascade to repair degenerative tissue by rebuilding new tissue." He has been told that it is a good idea for him to be as active as his pain level will permit because inactivity can actually be bad and weaken the tendon even more. So he will still be able to play with the different musical projects and bands he's involved with - at least with careful booking of gigs and depending on the level of pain he's in.