Tracy Porter, the Recovery Story of a Super Bowl Champion
I mean, it's unexplainable. I mean, it's, you know, it's one of the best feelings in the world outside of the birth of your kids. Every kid that plays football wants to win that Super Bowl. Tracy Porter, Indiana University graduate, drafted by the New Orleans Saints in 2008 and the guy that had the interception against Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl.
If you were a saints fan and that entire region been through so much with Katrina and to bring a championship there. It's just unbelievable.
All of a sudden, 2016 comes. I'm in Chicago, you know, coming off a great year in Chicago. And after my first game, my knee just started bothering me again. I didn't understand why when I'm walking, you know, it hurts to have to, you know, think twice about it of how I, how I would land. It was just frustrating coming to find out that, uh, you know, it's almost, you know, bone on bone.
Given the fact that he has bone on bone arthritis, his football career was essentially over what we've offered to Tracy is the possibility of continuing to play on new tissues replacement, discuss regrown articular cartilage, understanding that it doesn't make the knee normal and it may not last forever, but it permits him to return to sports and helps him buy time and extended his career.
I have talked to so many, you know, doctors, they gave me their opinions and what could, what could not be done? I had a talk with Dr. Stone, you know, he said, all right, well I see this is what's going on. This is a game plan that you know, we can come up with to help you out.
And day one, the plan was to go ahead and regrow his articular cartilage on a femur and tibia replace his meniscus, augment those tissues with injections of bioactive growth factors and then plan to rehabilitate him very carefully. I didn't want to go through, you know, another season of, you know, knee pain. So I said, you know, let's do a doc, you know, mile four is like, you know, you won't make it. You're going to regret it. Went in, I had it done and here we are
We want to put tissues back in or repair them and put growth factors in there to stimulate healing. We think that's a better approach towards preserving these athletes' long careers. Just like in my field, in the NFL, it only takes one team to love you to come in and get a job. All it takes is one doctor to see what you're going through and you know you'll be back on your feet. So don't give up.
Tracy Porter Profile
Super Bowl Immortality
Super Bowl Champion. 2nd round NFL draft pick. Award-winning cornerback. Tracy Porter performs at the most elite level in one of the most physically-demanding sports in the world.
In his 2nd year in the NFL with the New Orlean Saints, Tracy etched his name in Super Bowl history intercepting a pass from the legendary Peyton Manning and returning it 74-yards for a touchdown–ending any hopes of an Indianapolis Colts comeback and bringing the first-ever Super Bowl trophy to New Orleans.
A Career Stalled
The demands of the sport caught up with Tracy in 2011, requiring surgical intervention for injuries to the articular cartilage and meniscus in his left knee. Under the care of another surgeon, Tracy received the surgical solutions of a microfracture surgery and a meniscectomy commonly used in athletes with injured joints. While short-term results for these techniques often look promising, outcomes often tend to deteriorate over time with the initial damage to the articular cartilage becoming worse, ultimately leading to bone-on-bone arthritis.
With this all-too-predictable fate threatening to cut short Tracy’s professional career, he chose The Stone Clinic to repair his joint after hearing Dr. Stone’s game plan for naturally regenerating and rebuilding his knee.
Surgical Gameplan
Regrow. Replace. Augment. These are the key elements of the BioKnee “gameplan” pioneered by Dr. Stone to preserve the natural tissue and extend the careers of athletes like Tracy. Combining surgical techniques, the BioKnee treatment regenerates the articular cartilage with articular cartilage paste grafting, restores vital shock absorption with a new donor-transplanted meniscus, and accelerates the healing process through injections of bioactive and growth factors.
A New Meniscus, A New Chance
After a successful outcome with the BioKnee surgery, Tracy dedicated himself to rebuilding his knee strength and mobility under the guidance of The Stone Clinic physical therapy team. Now nearly fully recovered and living pain-free, Tracy begins the second biggest return of his career: his return to the NFL. With repaired cartilage and a new meniscus comes a new chance, and as Tracy encapsulates it, “It only takes one team to love you to come in and get a job. All it takes is one doctor to see what you’re going through and you’ll be back on your feet. So don’t give up.”
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