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Key Takeaways
- A hand surgeon at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is one of a select group of U.S. surgeons trained to replace the arthritic thumb joint with a dual-mobility implant.
- The one-hour outpatient procedure requires no physical therapy. Traditional surgery removes a wrist bone and takes months of recovery.
- Thumb arthritis is largely genetic, and people with pain often mistake it for carpal tunnel or muscle weakness.
Roxanne Drake tends more than 10 acres, and severe thumb pain made everyday tasks unbearable for the 71 year old. She assumed it was carpal tunnel. It was arthritis.
Ryan Schmucker, MD is a hand surgeon at The OSUWMC. Dr. Schmucker replaced Drake’s joint with what he calls “a mini hip replacement.” It is a ball-and-socket implant design that allows movement in multiple planes. The procedure is established in Europe but new to the United States, and only select surgeons are being trained to perform it.
“I could move my thumb the next day,” Drake said. “The pain that I had was gone.” She is now scheduling the same procedure on her other thumb.
