Entry 235-2
Huntsville Hospital and The Orthopaedic Center Provide Medical Care to Strike King Pros
Editor’s Note: Dewayne Manning is the director of sports medicine at Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville Hospital and The Orthopaedic Center (TOC), also located in Huntsville, have teamed up to offer medical advice and treatment to the Strike King Pro Staff members. We’ve asked Manning, a certified athletic trainer, about the injuries fishermen commonly suffer, and what treatment options are available.
Part 2: Torn Rotator Cuffs and Other Serious Injuries
Question: Yesterday, Dewayne, we discussed how the Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama, is providing 24-hour, on-call medical service to the Strike King Pro Staff fishermen. You said the No. 1 injury that fishermen encounter was elbow problems. What’s the No. 2 injury that happens to these athletes?
Manning: The shoulder and the entire arm will often have symptoms of overuse. One of the problems we have is that fishermen now fish with extremely-strong braided line. So when they set the hook on a big bass, something’s got to give, and it’s not always the bass. Either the rod will snap, or something will be pulled, torn or strained in the fisherman’s shoulder. That can be an acute injury.
Fishermen can also develop rotator-cup tendonitis caused by over-handed throwing-type motions, just like the overuse we see in baseball pitchers. To solve this problem, depending on the severity, we’ll prescribe anti-inflammatory medicine, and/or we’ll teach them to use stretching and strengthening exercises to correct the problem and eliminate the inflammation of the joint to help them feel better.
Question: What do you do if a fisherman gets a torn rotator cuff?
Manning: They can come to the hospital and have surgery for that injury. Another common problem is a bone spur in the shoulder. 
One of our Strike King Pros right now has a bone spur, and he’s coming to the Huntsville Hospital for one of our doctors to operate on him. The doctor will take the bone spur off and help solve the pain in his shoulder. If you don’t remove those bone spurs, they can actually tear the rotator cuff, which is a much-more serious problem than the bone spur and requires a much-longer recovery period. We look at our Strike King Pros’ competition and appearance schedules and pick a time that’s most convenient for them to have the surgery done. The pro looks at his schedule after we’ve told him how long he’ll need for recovery. Then he can block that much time off his schedule. We want to get our fishing athletes back into the game as fast as possible.
You can contact Dewayne Manning at TOC at Huntsville Hospital at 256-539-2728 or email him at dewaynem@hhsys.org. For more information about The Orthopaedic Center, call 256-265-5000 or go to The Orthopaedic Center website.
