WAG Elbow OCD - comebacks after surgery?

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So after a very long summer and talking to 4 different doctors, DD has been diagnosed with pretty bad elbow OCD. Getting surgery in several weeks for it, but best case scenario she will only miss this season. Even worse, the prognosis is bad enough that the doctor has told us she may never be able to fully comeback it all depends on what happens with the surgery. She is 12, and was going to go L9, and does not want to quit -even if it means not being able to do all events.

Anyone have or know of any good success stories with this issue? Looking for some ray of hope...
 
Yes! There are many ! Alex Marks and Lauren Beers both college scholarship athletes are two examples off the top of my head. If you google their names and elbow OCD you can read their inspiring stories online. The surgery helps gymnasts stay in the sport.
 
Yes, we have had gymnasts go through this. There is a long period of recovery, where they can't use their arm, but this is a great chance to build their leg strength.

Our gymnasts continued to train through the whole recovery period. On floor we focused on leaps, Ji,ps, turns, dance, aerials, front and back tucks, layiuts etc, on beam lots of leaps, jumps turns and dance, on vault we did a lot of aerial awareness work on trampolines, lots of twisting etc. Bars is out of the question, so while the team have done bars they have done an individual program of conditioning, strength and active flexibility.

The gymnasts have been able to return to full training, with no further complications and the extra leg work has obey resulted in being stronger gymnasts than ever before.y
 
Yes! There are many ! Alex Marks and Lauren Beers both college scholarship athletes are two examples off the top of my head. If you google their names and elbow OCD you can read their inspiring stories online. The surgery helps gymnasts stay in the sport.
Thanks for pointing me to these stories! Looks like they both had long journey's but at there is hope!
 
Yes, we have had gymnasts go through this. There is a long period of recovery, where they can't use their arm, but this is a great chance to build their leg strength.

Our gymnasts continued to train through the whole recovery period. On floor we focused on leaps, Ji,ps, turns, dance, aerials, front and back tucks, layiuts etc, on beam lots of leaps, jumps turns and dance, on vault we did a lot of aerial awareness work on trampolines, lots of twisting etc. Bars is out of the question, so while the team have done bars they have done an individual program of conditioning, strength and active flexibility.

The gymnasts have been able to return to full training, with no further complications and the extra leg work has obey resulted in being stronger gymnasts than ever before.y

Aussie coach, thank you! Her coaches are also willing to work with her and she has been going to full practice every day even though she is limited in what she can do. One more question for you, once the girls could practice bars again how long did it take them to get their bars back typically? And could they still vault eventually?
 
So after a very long summer and talking to 4 different doctors, DD has been diagnosed with pretty bad elbow OCD. Getting surgery in several weeks for it, but best case scenario she will only miss this season. Even worse, the prognosis is bad enough that the doctor has told us she may never be able to fully comeback it all depends on what happens with the surgery. She is 12, and was going to go L9, and does not want to quit -even if it means not being able to do all events.

Anyone have or know of any good success stories with this issue? Looking for some ray of hope...

two gymnasts from our gym had OCD and surgery. 1 made it all the way back - going to stanford this year. the other one did not and ended up quitting gym..
 
Yes, we have had gymnasts go through this. There is a long period of recovery, where they can't use their arm, but this is a great chance to build their leg strength.

Our gymnasts continued to train through the whole recovery period. On floor we focused on leaps, Ji,ps, turns, dance, aerials, front and back tucks, layiuts etc, on beam lots of leaps, jumps turns and dance, on vault we did a lot of aerial awareness work on trampolines, lots of twisting etc. Bars is out of the question, so while the team have done bars they have done an individual program of conditioning, strength and active flexibility.

The gymnasts have been able to return to full training, with no further complications and the extra leg work has obey resulted in being stronger gymnasts than ever before.y

My youngest had OCD in her right elbow as an 11 yo and had the surgery and did well...she was level 9 at the time. My caveat in all this is that her doctor did not want her in the gym AT ALL during her 7 month recovery time...no gym at all. She did PT faithfully 2-3 times a week but did not set foot in the gym for 7 months, and didn't miss a beat. She had the microfracture procedure into her humerus to stimulate cartilage growth so that is part of the reason she remained out of the gym...to allow the cartilage to grow. She came back in the spring of that year and ended up going to regionals in the 2 events she was ready to compete and placed well.

Her elbow never really gave her any issue after is was repaired. She went on to be a successful Level 10 and got a scholarship to a D1 school, and would've competed NCAA but 6 years after the elbow, she blew out her knee, had multiple surgeries and ended up retiring from the sport....but my point is, the OCD repair was never the issue.
 
With any injury it is always a possibility that you may not come back. In other words, just keep going. :)
 
From what I have heard, the most important factor in success is taking the time off to ensure that it is fully healed before returning. DS has a teammate who's dealing with this, and his coach once had a guy with OCD who had a very difficult road back due to coming back too quickly. He made a second comeback and eventually ended up in college and was a rings champion. But healing this simply cannot be rushed.
 
My first recommendation is to make sure you are seeing a sports orthopedist. My DD had OCD, but the pediatric orthopedist was against surgery because her growth plates were still open. He wanted her to rest for six months to see if the lesion would heal on its own. This cost her all of the 2015 season and when the OCD did not improve, we got referred to a sports orthopedist. He had her scheduled for surgery a week later. DD had the same surgery as bookworm described in March of last year. She wasn't ordered out of the gym, just couldn't do anything involving her arm, and she diligently stuck with PT 3x a week. She was released for limited training in October and finally full training in November. She did not have much time to get her skills for L9, but she was able to compete floor only at the first meet of the season. She added events as the season progressed and was able to qualify for state, regionals and Westerns. She is still a little protective of her elbow and doesn't quite have the same range of motion, but she is actively training for L10 this season. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have had her see the sports orthopedist sooner, and it might not have cost her over six months of training.
 
Aussie coach, thank you! Her coaches are also willing to work with her and she has been going to full practice every day even though she is limited in what she can do. One more question for you, once the girls could practice bars again how long did it take them to get their bars back typically? And could they still vault eventually?

After surgery generally a full 12 months before they can return to full training. Once they had clearance to return to training it did not take long to be able to do all they did before since we did so much core strength work while they couldn't do bars.

They couldn't vault specifically, but during vault rotations they were still a part of the full training, instead they would run up and straight jump onto the table and do standing front and back tucks off the table, standing front and back like etc. they could do all the vault drills, but so,e had to be modified so they didn't use their arms and we do a lot of aerial awareness work on the trampolines (like twisting) during vault rotations, which they were fine to do.
 
Thanks all for your feedback. This is all really helping me to set expectations for my daughter as well. We are with a good sports orthopedist now, but with that comes a six week wait until he can do her surgery because he is booked until then. Okay, so we are in it for the long haul it looks like! DD is being a trooper, but I will be happy once we get this surgery done.
 
DD also had surgery for elbow OCD in May of 2014. She was training L9 at the time. I would agree the taking the recovery time after the surgery is just as important as the surgery itself. 2+ years after surgery my DD is still in the sport competing L9 and High school.


Good Luck to your DD.
 

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