Is Tenex™ an Alternative to Rotator Cuff Surgery?

The rotator cuff in your shoulder isn't something you really think about a whole lot … until something goes wrong and you’re left with shoulder pain and limited use of your arm.

Each year in the United States, about 2 million people seek medical help for rotator cuff tears, to say nothing of the many more who are dealing with rotator cuff damage that isn’t quite a partial or complete tear. At least not yet.

Besides providing pain management for our patients, the other priority at Revive Spine and Pain Center is offering alternate solutions to invasive and potentially risky surgical repairs. Examples of this are rotator cuff tears and tendinopathies, which are responsible for a good deal of the overall shoulder pain burden.

Here, we explore how our innovative Tenex® treatments can help you heal from rotator cuff injuries without having to undergo painful and lengthy surgical repair.

Examining rotator cuff injuries

Your rotator cuff is a strong band of tissues made up of four muscles that come together to form tendons that connect your arm to your body. The rotator cuff not only keeps your arm attached, it also enables you to lift and rotate your arm.

There are many ways these tissues can become damaged. Many rotator cuff problems are gradual and stem from overuse. If you overstress these tissues, tiny tears can develop that lead to pain and inflammation (tendinitis) in your shoulder.

These tears can also weaken the tendons, making you far more vulnerable to full and partial tears of the tissue.

When Tenex can help heal your shoulder

One of the challenges with rotator cuff injuries is that they can be tough to address. Complete ruptures of the tendon, for example, won’t readily heal on their own and often require surgical repair, especially if you actively rely on your arm.

That said, surgery is far from the only option available to you. For rotator cuff tendinitis and rotator cuff tears, a better first step might be Tenex, which is a far less invasive treatment.

With Tenex, we make small incisions in your shoulder, through which we thread a probe. This probe delivers ultrasonic vibrations to the tendon to separate damaged tissues from the healthier ones. 

The ultrasonic energy emulsifies the damaged tissues, making it easier for us to suction them out through the same small incisions.

This ability to debride damaged and scarred tissues from your rotator cuff can set the connective tissue on a healing course that will improve function and reduce pain.

Tenex — a faster and less invasive road to shoulder health

Because we only make a small incision for the probe, there’s minimal collateral damage with Tenex, which can’t be said of rotator cuff surgery.

While we do use a local anesthetic for your comfort, you’re awake during the Tenex treatments, which only take us about 20 minutes to complete. You’re then free to go on with your day.

And since we’re not making repairs, but setting the stage for your body to do the healing work, your recovery period is much shorter than it is with surgery.

Summing it up, one study that followed 15 patients with rotator cuff injuries who opted for Tenex treatments instead of surgery concluded that Tenex “carried a high safety profile with significant improvement in outcomes in the majority of patients.”

To see for yourself whether Tenex might hold the key to resolving your rotator cuff issues, we invite you to contact us at one of our conveniently located offices in Marlton, Hamilton Township, Northfield, or East Brunswick, New Jersey, to schedule an appointment.