Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - Locked On Patriots October 10, 2017 Sub-episode 1 - Talking Brady's Injury with Orthopedic Surgeon Christopher Geary

Episode Date: October 10, 2017

Word came out of New England today that quarterback Tom Brady was held out of practice with a sprained A/C joint to his left shoulder. Mark Schofield hopped on the mic quickly with Dr. Christopher Geary, an orthopedic surgeon and the Chief of Sports Medicine at Tufts Medical Center, to break it all down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's me, Mark Scoville from Locked On Patriots, and we are recording an emergency edition of Locked On Patriots, Tuesday, October 10th, 2017. Don't look outside. You might think the sky has fallen. Reports out of Foxborough this afternoon, Tom Brady held out of practice. The reason, a sprain to the AC joint of his left shoulder. Reports are out of Foxborough that Brady went for an MRI of the left shoulder.

Haven't heard anything definitive on that. But again, the reports are Tom Brady dealing with a sprain to the AC joint of his left shoulder. When something like this happens, I'm going to hop to the mic as quickly as I can to at least get you some thoughts on it. And the initial thoughts are that, look, this is something that Jimmy Garoppolo dealt with. You know, it's his left shoulder. It's not his thrown shoulder.

It's not an injury to his right arm. It's an injury to the non-thrown shoulder. And so as somebody that's dealt personally with some shoulder injuries, I've got torn labrums in both shoulders. You know, I played the quarterback position. I know what it's like to deal with an injury to the thrown shoulder. And, you know, my first thought on this is, look, this is just, it's a non-throwing shoulder.

It's not a throwing arm. It's a contact sport. Things like this will happen. They held him out of practice today. I'm not too worked up about it, but that's just quickly my take on it. But I'm not an expert. But what do I

do here at Locked On Patriots? If I can find somebody that will have a much more informed take, I reach out to them. I get them on the mic. I get them on the phone, whatever I have to do. And I did just that in a couple of seconds. We're going to be talking to Christopher Geary.

He is an orthopedic surgeon. He is the chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical Center. You need to follow him on Twitter, at Chris Gary Ortho. He tweets out sports injury stuff all the time, particularly with an eye to Boston sports. And so if you're a Patriots fan, if you're a Red Sox fan, if you're a Bruins fan,

if you're a Celtics fan, you need to be following Chris. He does incredible work. And so in a couple of seconds here, I'll bring Chris on, spend some time with him. You can hear from an expert what to expect going forward now with Tom Brady in this sprained AC shoulder injury.

Now listen, Locked On Patriots listeners. You don't have to take my word on this. I brought in an expert. And when I say an expert, I'm talking like the definitive expert in the field he is an orthopedic surgeon he is the chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical Center he is Dr. Christopher Geary Dr.

Geary how are you today my friend good how you doing Mark I'm doing well and so the people know where to find you you are at Chris Geary that's C-H-R-I-S G-E-A-R-Y ortho o-r-t-h-o on twitter if you're not following dr gary follow him he tweets out sports information stuff all sports injury stuff all the time you should definitely be following him and dr gary the reason why i

wanted to bring you on we're hearing some reports that tom brady sprained the AC joint in his non-throwing shoulder. Can you just quickly translate that for us? So this is, it's basically the exact same injury that Garoppolo had last year. You know, you remember seeing him go down in the second game against the Dolphins. I think Garoppolo's injury is a little more severe in terms of grade. Basically, the AC joint is the small joint on top of your shoulder where your clavicle meets your acromion, this little bump on top of the shoulder. And you can sprain it, you can separate it. It's not a shoulder dislocation, that's the ball and socket joint, but you can separate it,

that's when the bone actually kind of pops up. And that can be really painful, but you can also just basically sprain it. So it's like you can sprain your ankle, and that can be really painful. But you can also just basically sprain it. So it's like you can sprain your ankle, you can sprain your shoulder. And it can be certainly a source of pain. I mean, Brady didn't practice today. Garoppolo missed whatever, two and a half games with his last year. It doesn't really compromise the shoulder from a structural standpoint, but it's just basically a significant source of pain.

So the fact that it's a non-throwing shoulder is good um it's not great obviously but it's better than being a throwing shoulder where he might not be able to throw or it might alter his mechanics or something like that so um certainly something to monitor going forward he's had these in the past um he had one in the run-up to super bowl 42 i think it was um and you know again a very common injury in contact athletes. And, you know, it's just something that they may, you know, we've got to monitor moving forward with him. You mentioned, you know, it's common in contact athletes.

Is that usually the mechanism of injury? It's a contact injury? Yeah. So this is, you know, you can get these kind of chronic nutritional injuries or overuse injuries like rotator cuff things, you know, in overhead athletes. But with AC joint injuries, it's basically inevitably a contact kind of thing. Usually it's a fall directly onto your shoulder.

You know, in Garoppolo's case last year, you can remember him getting driven into the ground with Kiko Alonso on top of him. You know, the entire weight of his body landed on his shoulder, and he injured that joint that way. It's very common in hockey players. You think about them getting driven into the boards, they injure their shoulders that way. But usually it's a fall onto a shoulder like that.

So it's almost, yeah, like to your question, it's almost always a contact injury. What's the usual treatment for something like this? Is this something that's just kind of a pain medication treatment, or does it go beyond that? With an injury of the grade that Brady has, it's not something that's surgical, certainly. It is pain management. It's physical therapy.

It's ice. It's whatever the hell Alex Guerrero is going to cook up for that shoulder. There you go. In some cases, you could do a cortisone injection you know if this was if you had a bad injury and it was you know leading up to the afc championship game or you know the super bowl then certainly you'd probably see him getting a you know cortisone injection maybe you know an injection right before the game to kind of numb it um but uh with this it's really it's kind of anti-inflammatories ice rest physical game to kind of numb it. But with this, it's really kind of anti-inflammatories, ice, rest, physical therapy, that kind of thing.

So that's what they're going to monitor. And they'll monitor his activities and maybe keep him out of practice a little bit to let him rest and get some treatment on it. So I guess, Dr. Gary, that the million-dollar question is, should Patriots fans be panicking right now? No, I don't think so. I think this is something, you know, it's a contact sport. It's, you know, guys get hurt, guys hurt.

You know, if you had to pick an injury to a joint in Brady's upper body, I would say this injury to his non-contact, I'm sorry, his non-throwing shoulder is, you know, one of the ones that you would pick off a list in terms of, you know, things that aren't that horrendous. If it was his throwing shoulder, if it was his rotator cuff, if it was his throwing elbow or something like that, that's something I'd be like, geez, this is not good,

especially at this point in the season. I'd have to shut him down for a while or something like that. But with this one, it's kind of like it's going to suck for him, it's going to hurt, but it's not the kind of thing I think is going to really keep him out of any action. Fantastic knowledge, fantastic stuff any action. Fantastic knowledge. Fantastic stuff, Dr. Geary. Again, follow him on Twitter, at Chris Geary Ortho. He is an orthopedic surgeon, the chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical Center.

Chris, man, thank you so much for hopping on with me on short notice. I appreciate it. Hey, sure thing, Mark. Talk to you later. So there you have it. From an incredible resource in this field. Dr. Christopher Gary, again, he's the chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical Center. What you heard from him, look, this is the exact same injury that Garoppolo had, but Garoppolo's was actually

more severe and he was out for two, two and a half weeks. You know, it's not a dislocation. It's usually a contact injury that happens when there's a fall, when you land on it. He took a lot of hits against Tampa Bay on Thursday night. And again, this is something we've talked about on this show, protecting Brady. Now we've got an injury. But as Dr. Gary said, look, if he's going to injure a joint in the upper body, if you're going to have a quarterback suffer an injury to a joint in the upper body, this is probably the one that you'd be okay with. You know, they'll deal with it from a pain management perspective.

You know, if it was a more severe grade to it, then maybe you might expect, you know, a cortisone shot or something, but this isn't something that's going to need surgery or anything like that. They'll just deal with it from a pain management perspective. So as I teased at the outset, don't look outside. The sky's falling. Obviously a little tongue-in-cheek there.

Everything's okay. Don't panic about Tom Brady right now. It's not the time to worry about it. Maybe be a little concerned, as we've talked about, with the status of the protection schemes with Brady. Making sure they get him blocked up and protected on Sunday against the Jets.

But as far as Brady's injury itself, don't worry too much about it. Again, don't take it from me. Take it from Dr. Gary. The man knows his stuff. Again, follow him on Twitter, at ChrisGaryOrtho. You might be hearing a lot more from him soon,

on this show and elsewhere. But that's been your quick emergency edition of Locked On Patriots with me, Mark Schofield. I'll be back later this week. Get some questions in. Hit me up on Twitter, at Mark Schofield. Want to hear your thoughts of the team as well. But until we speak again, keep it locked right here to me,

Mark Schofield and Locked on Patriots. Is democracy in danger or decline? Thank you.