SLOB

SLOB – really?

A quasi sincere apology for the name: 'SLOB' was not the intended name, but none of the five other names that were being tried or that others substituted including Summit Shelf survived. SLOB isn't really a shelf anyway. It is, evidently, just too easy to remember and it gets the radiologist's attention when written on the x-ray prescriptions - better than any of the substitutes. “ S upero- L ateral O utcropping B one-graft ” is what we wrote on the prescriptions for the post op hip x-rays, because radiologists, alarmed at the sudden new bone and extent, were calling it a possible sarcoma and putting everybody into panic. This treatment trick SLOB uses was first used by us for other troubled orthopedic bone healing situations with high success but also with similar radiology false alarms. Not one but, two of these early cases got biopsied (one at a very well known cancer hospital) where healthy new bone that was well organized was found. How it began First, why do anything? Young children have hips that are mostly soft (growing) material similar in feel to adult ears. Sustained pressure within the socket will deform the soft walled socket from its spherical shape to a slipper. The ball migrates into the pressured collapse that it is plowing. This plastic damage is called 'plastic damage' in med-speak: dysplasia. The term, Hip dysplasia , by usage default, refers to the socket and not the ball that beats the socket (ball is the hammer – socket wall is the nail).

In the old days (not THAT long ago) troubled babies did not survive. Their really super soft hips had no problems as they are not a problem in heaven. But big healthy full term babies – especially the girls made softer by mother's hormones - were getting hip flattening from late term womb compression added to by mom's