ABSTRACT
A 20-year-old male was admitted to emergency room with convulsion. He had insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus for 8 years. He had suffered nocturnal hypoglycemia after strenuous exercise without additional calories. After recovery, the patient complained of bilateral anterior shoulder dislocation. Patient's history revealed another episode of bilateral shoulder dislocations after an hypoglycemic convulsion 3 years ago.
Subject(s)
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/drug therapy , Exercise , Hypoglycemia/complications , Insulin/therapeutic use , Shoulder Dislocation/etiology , Adult , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/blood , Functional Laterality , Humans , Male , Recurrence , Shoulder Dislocation/diagnostic imaging , Shoulder Fractures/diagnostic imaging , Tomography, X-Ray ComputedABSTRACT
Long-term radiologic and clinical results of pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) are presented with illustration of two patients having Ficat-Arlet grade 2 osteonecrosis of the femoral head. One patient (female, age 33 years) had bilateral involvement due to systemic steroid use, the other (male, age 39 years) had right-sided involvement of unknown etiology. Surgical treatment was ruled out because of aplastic anemia associated with significant thrombocyte deficiency in the first patient, while the other refused surgery. Pulsed electromagnetic fields were applied as the sole treatment modality in three hips for six months with a duration of 10 hours daily (at nights). At the end of 12-year- and five-year-follow-ups, respectively, clinical improvement was observed in all hips, with no radiologic deterioration. It is concluded that application of PEMF stimulation alone may be an alternative treatment modality in patients in whom surgical treatment cannot be performed for femoral head osteonecrosis, in particular Ficat-Arlet grade 1 and 2 disease.
