which type of surgery between microfacture and yao's injury do you guys think is more severe and harder to recover? I know you cannot really tell with yao's because there's only been him and Big Z. As far as microfacture, the majority of the players were not who they used to me (that guy that got traded for kevin martin). Any medical experts? I just really wanna have some HOPE that Yao will recover next year.
One big difference between the two is that microfracture surgery attempts to get the body back to its previous working condition, while the foot-bone restructuring that Yao and Z had is designed to make the skeletal structure support the body BETTER. Which is more effective statistically? Good question.
The surgery Yao went through is the tougher one. The amount of micro fracture procedures that have been done over time on athletes has given orthopedic sugeons many cases to learn from - assisting in an expedited and efficient recovery. Yao's surgery is really rare. Doctors will use his procedure to learn from for other cases. It is much more of an experimental technique. This is why you cant predict what is going to happen. He will go through many stress tests. You will never see him playing as many minutes as he did before.
Are you sure about that? Microfracture surgery is a pretty recent development, while bone restructuring of the foot has been performed for decades. It's not as common in sports, so you don't hear about it much, but in the general population it's a relatively common procedure.
There's no way you or anyone can know this. Especially after Zydrunas went back to playing 30 mins + after his surgery.
Yes he does! Now we know that most 7'6" persons are vunerable to damage to their bones when put under excessive and repeated stress. Thus in order to get the maximum positive result from their investment and do the best for our team, they will try to get the best production per minute from Yao Ming without unduly risking another major injury.
Microfracture surgery is harder to recover from because you are dealing with cartilage. Cartilage has a poor blood supply and does not obtain enough nutrients, other than synovial fluid, to grow. Cartilage cannot "re-grow" but what surgeons do is poke holes in the bone and hope there is some reformation of the cartilage. There is big risk big reward with this surgery. Examples are Kidd and Amare vs. McGrady. With Yao's injury we are remodeling bone. Bone has a good supply of blood though it has less tensile strength than cartilage. But since we are remodeling we put less stress on the bone. The main point is bone heals better than damaged cartilage.
yao is having his foot re engineered, i have not had either surgery, but i would imagine yao's would be pretty traumatic, rehab would be a b**** for both though
Hoping this is sarcasm, but not sure....either way, the point is to reshape the arc so he doestn have that stress...so if it works he shouldnt need to limit his minutes so much and since we dont know yet if it'll work, there's no way to know how much he'll play.
hahaha thanks, hmmm....I think with time, just as like with Big Z, yao can go back to playing 30+ minutes..Big Z gave me hope.....that is why we need to either develop the hell of jordan hill or get another big man to let yao rest more until the playoffs and hopefully by then, he'll be close to 100%...and it makes me mad too, that the seasons with yao, we played him too many useless minutes...this year, we should rest him on back-to-backs, or against sorrier teams, No disrespect against the nets, wolves, kings, clippers, blah blah...sure we might lose some of those games, but that's nothing compared to losing yao...as we see this year
Surgeries are a complicated matter and it's hard to say that just because one person healed in x amount time another can also... Each body responds differently to the surgery and to the rehab. Both surgeries are career killers and for anyone to say that it's easier to come back from one surgery or another is basically taking a while stab in the dark; too many fators involved. For Yao the problem that he's facing is the amount of surgeries and problems he's had with the same foot... His heart may be there but his body may not. Each time you have a surgery you lose something.. Flexibility, strength, etc... When you have surgeries on the same body part every year or every other year times that by 5; because your body has not fully healed from the 1st injury or surgery. So basically the surgeries are almost identical, the factors revolve around the individual and their body. T_Man
Exactly. Still, we have to remember that Yao is among the 100 or so tallest humans to ever live. He's like a living science experiment, having almost certainly played more minutes of basketball at his age than anyone else that tall. It's amazing that Yao has the quickness and agility he does, especially compared to the other NBAers who were 7'5" or taller: Manute Bol Gheorghe Muresan Shawn Bradley Chuck Nevitt Slavko Vranes There has never been another player that tall with the agility Yao has -- Ralph Sampson probably comes closest, being more agile and a couple inches shorter than Yao. I'd go as far as to guess that never in history has a human that tall been subjected to that many minutes of extreme physical exertion. My belabored point is that despite the increase in knowledge, surgical methods, etc., we still don't know how Yao's body will react when again subjected to the extraordinary stress of NBA basketball. We may very well be looking at the limits of how big a body can be and still manage to deal with that kind of pounding on the foot bones.
Remember he has two feet! Not sarcasm, just the way the Rockets are approaching the return of Yao Ming.especially for his first season back.
Statistics don't mean jack when it comes to individual patients. It's a reference but not a prognosis. Ready for a physiological explanation in layman's terms? In Yao's case, his right foot was born flat, so that every bone in his right foot has been taking on & sharing the enormous pressure from the right leg. However, his left foot was normally arched like ours (if your foot's not flat that is). In turn, at certain sections of his formerly arched left foot, there was only a couple bones taking on ALL the pressure on his left leg. And unfortunately that same bone kept breaking because although it was repaired, once Yao was back on the court, the pressure on the same bone's still the same, so from retrospective, his repeated stress fractures were inevitable given his foot's structure. This time the surgeons basically artificially flattened Yao's left foot so that arch that kept screwing Yao up at end of seasons no longer exists. Now like his right foot, which never had a stress problem, all bones in his left foot now get to share the load, thus giving us a pretty optimistic prognosis. If Yao can go back to playing condition, it's ON baby!
My worst fear is that once all these foot and leg probelms end he'll have something else happen, like arm or back trouble
Are you an insider? Otherwise i'm not sure you can be certain of anything. Saying that they'll be careful with him and work him up slowly is just common sense and general knowledge. However, you defended a comment where the poster said he'd never play the same amount of minutes again, which is not the same thing..
i dont think that's likely....most of the time issue start the foot and work themselves up. I'm surprised he didnt have back or hip issues before with uneven arches. Now his feet should be more balanced, so i think it may actually help him out as a whole.
Based on his position and how he plays, there is barely any risk factors for those. So I guess that's your personal phobia man!
