FLOWERY BRANCH – Falcons coach Dan Quinn will make one the first major decisions of head coaching career on Friday on how to deal with running back Tevin Coleman's cracked rib.
Because of medical advances, the team has several options for an injury that takes four to six weeks to fully heal, according to Dr. Vernon B. Williams, the director of the Kerlan-Jobe Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine in Los Angeles.
Coleman, a rookie third-round pick and starting running back, can play with his cracked rib because it’s not displaced and a threat to puncturing his lung or affected his respiratory system.
The Falcons will have to consider the options for reducing his level of pain and heavily padding his rib cage.
“The more common scenario is if there is pain associated with the rib fracture and that pain can limit a person from taking a deep breathe,” Williams aid. “If you are exerting yourself and you’ve got to take deep breathes, which most of us do, when we are exerting ourselves, the pain associated with the cracked rib can be difficult and kind of shorten your inspiration.”
The Falcons could used pills or pain injections to help reduce the pain.
“There are different ways to do that,” Williams said. “Oral medications, anti-inflammatory medications and pain medications can be helpful. There are now some topical agents that are sometimes used like a local anesthetic patch that can be applied over the skin in that area.”
There is another option that the Falcons may consider. It’s called Cryoanesthesia, which is the freezing of the Intercostal nerve.
“It’s a very, very safe way of turning the nerve off that’s sending pain signals,” Williams said. “We can turn the Intercostal nerve off for months at a time. You can get some really good pain control that way.”
But the pain is most severe in the first two to four weeks and the Falcons don’t know Coleman’s threshold for pain.
“We’ll normally use a four-to-six week period for a complete healing of the rib,” Williams said. “But a lot of the symptoms, the pain associated and limitations are normally going to improve in that two-to-four week period.”
Cryoanesthesia might be the way to go for the Falcons.
“That’s great because it doesn’t involve any medication and it can be very effective for a long period of time,” Williams said. “It’s a way of pain control by therapy. It’s basically freezing the nerve so that it is unable to send pain signals.”
