Pizza Man Gary Moses Receives Cutting Edge Treatment for Elbow Repair

BY CHERYL SLAVIN

For over 30 years pizza maker Gary Moses of Napoli’s Pizza in New City has thrown the dough. Hundreds of pies a week have added up to thousands of pies a year. But the long, repetitive of hours of tossing and shaping his wares have taken their toll; the tendons of his right arm, stretched to the limit, began to hurt so badly he feared he wouldn’t be able to do what he loved any more.

Enter Dr. Jason Fond, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist whose practice, Advanced Orthopedics and Sports, is located in Nanuet. Moses first saw Dr. Fond a few years ago, when the problem with his elbow initially became unbearable.

“This is a very common injury most often known as ‘tennis elbow,’ or ‘golf elbow,’” Dr. Fond explains. “The tendons, which are the bands of tissue that connect muscle to muscle, become stretched and worn out from persistent, repetitive use over a period of time. Usually the first course of treatment is rest and physical therapy. But sometimes we have to take a more aggressive approach.”

In Moses’s case, the doctors determined that he needed surgery to remove the damaged tendons. At that time the only procedure available involved cutting open the elbow and surgically removing the damaged tissue. The procedure was painful and recovery took over six weeks. Nonetheless, Moses went ahead with this course of treatment, and after an extended period of recovery, was able to resume making pizzas.

Only a year later, however, Moses began to experience the elbow pain again. When he got to the point where “I couldn’t even lift a towel,” he explains, he returned to Dr. Fond.

This time, Dr. Fond used a new technique, the TENEX Health TX, that was far less invasive with relatively little pain and a very short recovery time. The TX Micro Tip is a hand-held instrument that delivers precise ultrasonic energy to cut and remove damaged tendon tissue. Instead of placing the patient under general anesthesia and cutting the affected area open with a scalpel, the surgeon makes a small incision under local anesthesia and inserts the tiny ultrasonic needle. Then, using ultrasound guidance, he removes the damaged or diseased tissue while at the same time preserving healthy tissue and stimulating a healing response. The entire procedure takes about 20 minutes and requires no sutures; many patients can resume full actitivities in less than six weeks.

In Moses’ case, he was back at work only a few days later. Three months later, he’s still going strong.

“There’s no comparison,” he remarks, “between the first and second treatments.”

Dr. Fond concurs. “The TENEX procedure has only been around a year,” he says, “but as soon as I learned about it, I knew it made scientific sense. It produces the same results as the traditional procedure, but at a fraction of the time, pain and recovery involved.”

The TENEX procedure is FDA approved, and Dr. Fond is one of the first orthopedic surgeons to be trained in its use. He now also helps to train other orthopedists as well. A former athlete himself, Dr. Fond chose to enter the practice of orthopedics and sports medicine out of his own experiences with athletic injuries.

“Orthopedists are really quality of life doctors,” he explains. “We work to restore our patients’ abilities to resume their lives as mobile and pain-free as possible.”

That certainly seems to be the case for Gary Moses. Napoli’s Pizza has been a New City fixture across the street from Albertus Magnus High School for more than 18 years. With the help of Dr. Fond and the TENEX cutting-edge technology, Moses intends to keep on supplying slices to high school students and the community for at least a few years more.