An estimated 15.8 million Americans suffer from osteoarthritis, and like most of them 73-year old Guy Shockley accepted the pain as an inevitable part of growing older.

Until the degenerative disease wracked his shoulder to the point he could no longer raise his right arm over his head.

“I could lift my arm about halfway then the pain got so bad my arm just froze,” he said.

“I’m not an athlete,” said the retired weapons mechanic at Luke Air Force Base.  “But the arthritis became a real inconvenience.  I couldn’t carry anything with my right arm.  I couldn’t even lift a suitcase.”

The pain was especially bad at night, Shockley said, when he rolled onto his right shoulder.

“I was waking up all the time during the night,” he said.  “I hated it.”

Aspirin and simple anti-inflammatory drugs that often work well for many brought little relief to Shockley as the condition was first diagnosed in 1986 grew progressively worse. 

That’s why he opted for a new type of shoulder surgery pioneered by Dr. Ronald Joseph, and orthopedic surgeon at the Arizona Institute of Hand and Shoulder Specialists.

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The technique has brought relief to 175 people suffering from “end stage” arthritis.

More than 40 million Americans, including 250,000 children, suffer from on of the 100 forms of arthritis.  Doctors perform 300,000 joint replacements annually for the most severe forms.

It would have cost Shockley $12,000 and required several days in the hospital to have his shoulder replaced with a metal and plastic prosthesis.

But Joseph’s procedure – shoulder resurfacing – takes only one hour, requires no overnight hospital stay and costs about half that of a complete joint replacement.  Best of all, some patients return to the tennis court or the golf course in a few weeks, Joseph said.

“We go in, clean up all the spurs on the top of the shoulder bone, fit a metal cap over it, and you’re back in business,” Joseph said.

Before surgery, Shockley only had 45 degrees of external shoulder rotation, Joseph said.  Now he’s got about 75 degrees, close to normal, and full overhead range of motion with strength.

“I’m very happy with the results,” Schockley said.  “The pain is gone, and I have a lot more

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movement in my right arm and shoulder now.  The popping and clicking in my joint is gone, too.”

Joseph said the procedure is an outgrowth of 15 years of treating shoulder injuries.

The shoulder has a range of motion unmatched by any other joint in the human body.  But it is also the most fragile; its flexibility makes it prone to sudden injury and chronic wear and tear.

For years, Joseph and other orthopedic surgeons treated serious injuries by replacing the humerus – the shoulder bone – and rebalancing the rotator cuff, a group of muscles and tendons that anchor the shoulder joint.

But because the shoulder joint bears only a fraction of the weight the hip does, Joseph suspected there might be an easier way.

“I kept thinking there had to be a better way of doing things, so I went to an engineer friend of mine,” Joseph said.  “What we came up with was a hollow cap made of titanium metal that fits over the top of the humerus.”

During surgery, the cap is placed directly over the top of the humerus, pushing the ball away from the socket, tightening up the rotator cuff and making it stronger.

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