The Pat and Aaron Show Injury Report 9/12/2024 with Dr. Sellman

Aaron: Pat & Aaron Show and it’s time for the injury report presented by Florida Orthopedic Institute in partnership with Tampa General Hospital. We love football season for many reasons but one of them is because we get to talk to the many doctors at Florida Orthopedic Institute and Tampa General Hospital and this guy, this guy right now, this, I shouldn’t even call him a guy, this doctor, this gentleman.

Pat: Well, he is a gentleman. He’s also the guy that lets us I’ll call him a guy right? Because I think it’s a good thing and it’s because he let’s call him in the offseason. Right? Like even when it’s not football season we’re calling this guy.

Aaron: He is Dr. Jeff Sellman. He is the man. Dr. Sellman, how you doing?

Dr. Sellman: What’s up? Yeah, this guy. You guys are like, the family reunion. When you go back and see the creepy uncles once a year but you’re excited for some reason to see them again.

Aaron: That’s exactly right and you go, this guy. All right let’s speak about this guy, Jordan Love, all right. So, he sustains the MCL sprain at the end of the game and that stinks for Packers fans because it was really, literally, at the end of the game. Now, the expectation was he’s going to miss around two weeks but we’re hearing that he might actually give it a go this week. What are the problems that could come up if he does give it a go Dr. Sellman?

Dr. Sellman: First of all it’s a really good sign head coach came out and said that. Which tells us from the medical side sitting on the sidelines that it was not a severe sprain. Very likely just a very small, maybe on the cellular level, inflammation of that particular ligament. But, that particular injury can cause a little bit of uh, stiffness in in the knee going back and forth. You know in a straight line. Is actually pretty good and be able to do that but his position, where, requires pivoting, change of direction, and all that can cause some issues with a pain and maybe a little instability depending on the extent of that particular injury.

Pat: And I was going to ask you if you know, as a doctor, if you’ve got a young athlete that’s coming to you, that you know, plays different positions if that would at all change when you would suggest a player coming back? And I say that for a couple of reasons, not just about the pivoting and some of the movement and stuff. You know there’s some positions where you can stay a little bit more out of the fray when it comes to contact to your legs. Whereas at the quarterback position, you’ve got guys falling at your legs all the time. What’s the level of concern about somebody hitting that joint or that area because of the fact that you play the quarterback position?

Dr. Sellman: I think there’s still always a big concern whether or not you actually have that there already laying as an injury and just giving a little added protection with the brace would be helpful for psychologic protection as well.

Aaron: Let’s talk about Antoine Winfield Jr. and keep it local here with the Buccaneers. He was in a walking boot. Not a good sign for the Buccaneers, they need him. What do you suspect is going on with Antoine Winfield Jr and how long realistically do you think he’s going to miss from what you’ve seen?

Dr. Sellman: I think realistically, you know, one to three weeks he likely will be out. The walking boot is not always a bad sign, it’s actually a really good way to get it to heal. The good news is that if they say that he’s likely back in two weeks, it’s not a high ankle sprain; which involves a lot more tissue damage and a lot more recovery. He might just be plagued with a little bit of, you know, instability. A little bit of swelling. I know we’ve all had ankle injuries before and these darn things can last, you know, even up to a year with swelling with no pain. So, it can be just a little bit weaker.

Pat: I remember, you know, when I was younger and I was playing a lot of basketball, I was like banging up my ankle or, you know, twisting my ankle here and there. There was a lot of days where like, I would wake up the next day and for like 2 minutes I feel like I couldn’t walk. Then after that I was just fine. But also, I wasn’t trying to be a world-class athlete. Is that something similar to what somebody like Antoine Winfield Jr. might deal with? What is the level of danger in that situation if they’re feeling something like that or is it just kind of like part of the process as a human being when you’re getting up after dealing with an injury like that?

Dr. Sellman: Oh yeah, part of the process what we see a lot is that, for instance, when you get a kid as a basketball player, he’s at basketball camp, he sprains it on a Saturday. He thinks he’s fine and then gets up on Sunday he’s like, holy cow this thing is broken. But, it actually is not. It’s just a part of the healing process. The body comes in with all of this, you know, good stuff to get it to heal and that creates this amount of swelling. That creates significant stiffness but when you get the blood flow it just starts to get loosened up again.

Aaron: Dr. Jeff Sellman joining us right now, Florida Orthopedic Institute in partnership with Tampa General Hospital. I also want to talk about Bryce Hall, who unfortunately, we know he’s going to miss the season here. Dislocated right ankle with a fractured fibula against The Commanders. Is that common? When you get one something, like a right ankle dislocation, that’s something like a fibula could happen as well?

Dr. Sellman: Nearly 100% of the time if the ankle dislocates, one of the bones is likely going to break and that’s an unfortunate news about it.

Pat: Why is that?

Dr. Sellman: When you have multiple tissues involved, like a bone, a ligament, and then a tendon, each one of those takes a little varying times to heal. If, for instance, he just broke his fibula. He probably would be back within one to two weeks depending on, what you know, the break, and they get them in quickly. But, when you move that joint out of place, you can even disrupt some of the cartilage inside the joint itself. Which just creates kind of a mess for recovery in the athlete itself.

Aaron: Will he be, I mean, next year, when he starts to get through the recovery process, will he be able to get back to his former self?

Dr. Sellman: It’s going to take at least six months more than likely after his surgery and that’s just a, you know, a guess based on just being the fibula involved. He should be back with no worries about that ankle at all next year. It’s going to take at least six months before he’s back to contact.

Pat: Last week Jake Ferguson was hurt, injuring his knee against the Browns following a 2-yard reception. He’s now considered week to week with an MCL sprain and a bone bruise. When it comes to having that sprain and the bone bruise together, how does that impact recovery? Is that something that you do see a lot? Kind of like we were saying with the other injuries being combined?

Dr. Sellman: Especially the way he did it. When he planted the, you know, got tackled kind of weird and then his whole body weight went down on it. And then, you loosen that ligament and those two bones just come crashing together. So, a bone bruise is kind of like on the spectrum of a break of a bone. It could take even up to six weeks for that bone to feel better depending on the extent of the contusion itself.

Pat: Can you explain that a little bit? Because, like for me and I think for a lot of people, you hear bruise and you think, eh, no big deal. We’re used to a flesh bruise, you know? A surface bruise versus a broken bone. Sounds like a major thing. Explain a little bit about how they’re so similar.

Dr. Sellman: When you have a bruised bone you get basically micro fractures inside the bone. So if, you know, there’s the lining of the bone that surrounds the entire bone itself and then, all this bony matter on the inside. With a contusion you have little tiny micro fractures of inside the bone itself so, not only do you have to get that blood to drain away. But you also have to reorganize that bony tissue, which takes a little bit. And it’s the same thing as for a fracture, it has to be reorganized and built into new bone.

Aaron: Zion McCollum, last one here, and I I know, I didn’t send this your way. He’s dealing with a concussion. He was in a non-contact jersey, was practicing yesterday, dealt with his concussion days ago. How do you know what are the stages, Dr. Sellman, of getting a guy ready to go after a concussion and knowing that he can get through protocol without the symptoms?

Dr. Sellman: Yeah that is the biggest question. It’s still really reliant upon subjective data from the actual athlete themselves telling us what they feel. So, being honest with what their feelings are. Now, we have different kinds of tools such as computerized testing, standing these balance testing that we use objective data to have and compare to what he was before he had the injury. When those get back to where they were before, then we’re pretty confident that, okay, let’s move them on to the next step.

Aaron: Oh, and real fast here, somebody text it in and we like to get to the text messages because they like to get involved here. I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention with Christian McCaffrey, it’s been weird. We heard he, you know, he missed game one because of the calf and now we’re hearing he’s going to miss game two. The Achilles potentially as well, what do you have concern there long term with him?

Dr. Sellman: The Achilles is attached to the calf so it has no surprise that now they’re coming out with the Achilles. The Achilles is such a high-tension tendon that when it even gets a little inflamed, boy does it, does it really interfere and affect your gate, your run, and everything. So, going forward, that could be a little bit of an issue.

Aaron: Dr. Sellman, he knocks them all out of the park. We always love having him on and we’re definitely going to be having him on as a regular throughout this season with our injury reports. The Pat & Aaron Show Injury Report presented by Tampa General Hospital in partnership with Florida Orthopedic Institute. They provide you access to one of the top Orthopedic programs in the nation so if you’re dealing with one of these injuries, if you felt this before, if you know somebody who’s dealing with it, make sure you check out Florida Orthopedic Institute and schedule that appointment today at FloridaOrtho.com. Dr. Sellman, we love you and we’ll talk to you soon.

Pat: Thanks Doc.

Dr. Sellman: We love you guys.

Aaron: Great, the best, he’s fantastic, love having him back.