Pain Pump Practice Center: __________________ Pain Pumps May Cause Injuries What is PAGCL?

Numerous claims are now pending against the companies that manufacture, market or distribute the pain pumps for injury claims that the manufacturers failed to instruct or warn the U.S. medical community that the safety of using the pain pumps in the shoulder joint space had not been established or that the continuous injections of commonly used anesthetics may cause permanent injury. Recent studies have linked the use of post-operative, intra-articular high volume shoulder pain pumps following arthroscopic shoulder surgery to a rare, life-altering condition known as Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis.

If you or a loved one have developed cartilage damage or Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL) following arthroscopic surgery, you should call our Office.You may be entitled to compensation.  Call us at 1-800-862-1260.

The problem:
Hundreds of individuals across the country use high volume pain pumps to cope with the pain that often follows arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Now a new study suggests that the pumps may deliver too much medicine causing a loss of cartilage that can lead to lifelong pain and suffering.  In 2006, a presentation at an American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons meeting discussed a study that linked the use of intra-articular pain pumps in shoulder surgeries to a condition called Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL). PAGCL is one of the most common complications following shoulder surgeries. The aforementioned study reviewed 152 patients who had undergone anthroscopic shoulder surgeries and found that 12 of the patients developed PAGCL. In addition, the researchers found that all of the patients who developed the condition had been administered a shoulder pain pump filled with bupivacaine and epinephrine during their surgery. Furthermore, the only factor that the patients had in common was the use of a shoulder pain pump.

"All of a sudden we started seeing these patients come in with this mysterious and rare condition," says Dr. Charles Beck, an orthopedic surgeon and senior author of the study. "So, we decided to look back and see what they all had in common and what had changed. That's when we started looking closer at the pain pump and found that 63 percent of the patients who used one after surgery had all developed this horrible complication. Of course we stopped using them right away, but we felt obligated to do everything we could to help spread the word throughout the medical community."

If you or a loved one have developed cartilage damage or Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL) following arthroscopic surgery, you should call our Office.You may be entitled to compensation.  Call us at 1-800-862-1260.