Beyond surgery: Innovative injections relieve decades of shoulder pain for Queen Creek man

Plasma, bone marrow procedure restores AZ man's shoulder

A Queen Creek man, Laine Dyess, avoided a full shoulder replacement thanks to a cutting-edge procedure using his own plasma and bone marrow to treat his long-standing shoulder pain. FOX 10's Lindsey Ragas has the details.

QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. - A unique procedure using a patient's own plasma and bone marrow has proven life-changing for a Queen Creek man who faced the prospect of a complete shoulder replacement.

This innovative approach is now offering hope for treating orthopedic pain.

What we know:

Laine Dyess, of Queen Creek, first experienced issues with his left shoulder while serving in the military in the early 1990s.

"I had a what's called a subluxation, where it came out of socket, went back in and it tore some cartilage in there and some ligaments," Dyess said.

He underwent a procedure at the time, and a revision in the early 2000s, which provided relief for about two decades.

Laine Dyess

Two years ago, the pain in his left shoulder returned, hindering his daily activities, including going to the gym. Initially, Dyess was told he would need a complete shoulder replacement.

However, after consulting with Dr. Elizabeth Batterton, a sports medicine primary care physician at Banner Health, he learned about alternative options.

"We did a PRP injection, which is platelet-rich plasma, where we take his blood, we spin it down, we get the platelet rich layer. That's where it comes platelet rich plasma. And we injected that into the shoulder joint," Dr. Batterton explained. "He had a fairly good response to that, but we wanted to amp it up a notch. So we did a bone marrow aspiration procedure on him where we take bone marrow out of his posterior pelvis. We spin it down the same way we do PRP, but we concentrate to get the mesenchymal stem cells."

Dig deeper:

Dyess felt an improvement within just four weeks, with his pain level dropping from an 8 to a 2, and at times, no pain at all.

"Thus doing this procedure over a surgery, the downtime is a lot less, restrictions are a lot less. You're able to get back to your function in a much shorter period of time and hopefully delay or completely avoid surgery altogether," Dr. Batterton said.

Laine Dyess

Dyess quickly opted for the injections over surgery and is considering future booster injections if the pain returns. This simple fix has provided significant relief.

"On the horizon, I do not even see a surgery out there for me right now based on what she's done to be able to help me," Dyess said. "So I'm back in the gym five days a week. I'm not doing everything I was before, but I'm doing a lot and I feel fantastic."