The TriDoc Podcast, triathlon and health in one place · Dr. Jeff Sankoff

Ep. 191: Olympians, Injuries, and the Quest for Recovery: Let's Talk Labral and Meniscus Tears!

·1 hr 15 min·4 clips

A SLAP tear can peel the labrum off the glenoid, like lifting a Pringles tab.

Dr. Jeff Sankoff welcomes Dr. Kevin Stone back to TriDoc. Stone is the surgeon from the Stone Clinic in San Francisco, and Sankoff frames the discussion around advances in orthopedic science and medicine that help athletes recover from injury and stay with the sports they care about. The conversation starts with knees. Stone describes a study of people 50 and older who were told they needed a knee replacement or partial replacement but still had joint space, and he says many of them received a meniscus implant, sometimes with a cartilage graft, and then stayed out of joint replacement for years. Some got a long reprieve. He says about 42% of those patients gained roughly eight and a half years of relief before eventually moving on to joint replacement, while about 48% never went on to replacement over a two- to 25-year outcome study. The point is straightforward. Stone argues that even an arthritic knee can sometimes be given a shock absorber that buys time and helps people return to sport. From there the focus shifts to shoulders. A listener question leads Sankoff and Stone into SLAP tears and the frustrating search for a treatment that actually helps when the shoulder is not cooperating. PRP gets a hard pass. Stone says platelet-rich plasma has never been shown to help with SLAP tears, is not especially useful for shoulder problems more broadly, and is usually an out-of-pocket expense that does not return much value. He is blunt about that. The discussion then settles on conservative management, especially physical therapy and strengthening the rotator cuff. Stone explains that big shoulder exercises are not the same thing as rotator-cuff work, because the smaller muscles need repeated internal and external rotation work with the elbow anchored against the body. Elastic tubing and rubber resistance come up as practical tools. The focus stays on patient, targeted work. Stone and Sankoff keep circling back to the same idea: the goal is not just pain control, but restoring useful function without wasting time or money on treatments that do not earn their keep. The interview also echoes Stone's earlier appearance with Sankoff around his book Play Forever. Here it returns as a practical question: what can modern orthopedics do so athletes can keep doing the sports they care about instead of being told the story ends with injury?

As heard by us

A steady, practical listen on how athletes get back to moving.

TriDoc stays on the practical side of athletic recovery, moving from knee preservation to shoulder rehab with an eye on what actually gets patients back to sport. Dr. Jeff Sankoff and Dr.

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Why you'd press play

You want the straight answer on keeping an arthritic knee going before a replacement.

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