DETROIT – Detroit Receiving Hospital is one of the busiest emergency rooms in America.
It is where Bloomfield Hills native Dr. Michael Caroll learned how to stitch up a bullet wound, set broken bones and tend to patients in severe trauma.
Today, Dr. Caroll is helping thousands of patients with something far less traumatic but every bit as troubling: Severe shoulder pain.
"Chronic pain becomes an immediately dominating subject in your life because your mood is affected, you're rest is affected. It affects your physiology," said Caroll.
Forty-four million Americans suffer from shoulder pain, including Livonia realtor Amanda Callahgan. Callahgan was having sleepless nights and the poor housing market wasn't to blame.
"I was in extreme pain and I was not functioning," she said.
What started as a dull ache soon became unbearable.
"Al of a sudden it just hit me in the middle of the night and I could not sleep at all. It was excruciating," Callahgan said.
Dr. Caroll knows the pain well. He was suffering from it, too.
"We got steroid injections into the shoulder, iced the shoulder. Physical therapy. Nothing was working," Caroll said.
Caroll hit the medical books. The doctor turned inventor. He studied up on the shoulder. He made molds and tinkered and toiled until he came up with the RotatoReliever.
It's a simple two-part device. First, a cuff you wear to hold your shoulder in place while you sleep. It allows blood flow to the injured area.
"We connect the wrist to the knee to help the shoulder," Caroll said.
The second part is exercise balls which the patient uses to strengthen the rotator cuff.
"We've been able to make people better with just a few simple ideas," he said.
The set costs $129 and Dr. Caroll has already sold thousands online.
"It's very gratifying. We have less than a 2 percent return rate," he said.
Callahgan found the RotatoReliever on the Internet while she was searching for shoulder pain relief. She used the device for the recommended 40 days and the pain went away and never returned. She is not the only one throwing praise on the doctor turned inventor.
"The thing that really connected with me is that he said if this doesn't work in 40 days you have a different problem. You need to see a doctor. Send it back and we'll send back your money," she said.
Callahgan notices a difference within a few days.
"Probably the first night I could feel a difference. It kind of ... a bit of relief and I did get some sleep and that was huge," she said. "And by the third night I was sleeping, actually sleeping.
Caroll now treats patients at his family practice in Traverse City. He helps in Metro Detroit as a member of the Wayne State Family Medicine program. However, thanks to his invention and the Internet, this doctor is healing patients all around the world.
"We have hundreds of testimonials from MMA fighter to 93-year-old great grandmothers," Caroll said.
It may look unusual, but Callahgan said it stopped the pain and worry of potential shoulder surgery.
"It certainly made more sense to me than an MRI, surgery, rehab, scars and all of that," she said.