Form & Function Orthopaedics

Form & Function Orthopaedics Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Form & Function Orthopaedics, Surgeon, 9555 SW Barnes Road, Suite 275, Portland, OR.

Joint preservation for shoulders and knees

Orthopaedic surgery & regenerative care for active adults

Guided by the JointSpanMD™ approach

Founded by Dr. Nancy Yen Shipley

Portland, OR

04/29/2026

Packed these in the water bottle holder of my backpack before my Hawaii trip and they earned every inch of that real estate. I used the Hyperice Normatec Go 3x on the trans-Pacific flight to support circulation - because sitting that long is genuinely hard on your legs - and then every night after long days hiking the volcano and exploring the island for recovery.

They came home with me and I’m already thinking about every road trip, long travel day, and hard workout they’ll show up for.

Here’s what I loved: no app, no manual syncing, the pairs connect automatically, and the battery life handled everything I threw at it. As a surgeon who spends a lot of time thinking about how we move, recover, and protect our joints over a lifetime, I don’t recommend things casually.

Whether you’re a frequent traveler, someone who trains hard, or just someone whose legs feel heavy at the end of a long day - compression therapy is worth knowing about. And having something this portable means you’ll actually use it.

Thanks to Hyperice for sending me this demo.

My patients can grab a pair directly at the clinic. Everyone else: use the affiliate link in bio for 15% off with free shipping. Recovery is not optional. It should be part of the plan.

👉 https://tidd.ly/3OKmreZ



04/27/2026

Standing next to a volcano at night and feeling very small and very alive at the same time.

This is what I think about when I talk about JointSpan. Not a number on a chart. Not a scan result. Not a surgical score.

This. The ability to say yes to the trip. To show up. To feel the heat and the glow and the absolute wildness of being a human being on this planet.

JointSpan is the idea that your musculoskeletal health is not separate from your quality of life. It IS your quality of life. Your joints, your bones, your muscles are the infrastructure that gets you to moments like this one.

And most of us are not thinking about that infrastructure until something breaks. Until we are told we need a replacement. Until the answer is surgery.

I want to change that conversation. I want you thinking about your joints the way you think about your heart, your hormones, your sleep. Because they are just as foundational to how long you live well.

This is why I built JointSpan. And this is why I am not stopping.

Follow along at for more on joint preservation, regenerative medicine, and what it actually means to age on your own terms.

04/25/2026

Still grateful for this one.

Earlier this year I was named to the 2026 Portland Montly Top Doctors list for Orthopaedics — voted on by my fellow physicians and healthcare peers.

Peer recognition means something to me because my colleagues see the full picture. The clinical decisions. The patients I fight for. The philosophy behind choosing preservation over replacement whenever it’s possible.

That philosophy is why I built Form & Function Orthopaedics the way I did — and why I keep showing up for patients who were told their only option was surgery or “just live with it.”
There are almost always more options. That’s the work.

If you want to know more about what we do and how we think about joint health differently, f2ortho.com is the place to start.

Form and Function Orthopaedics represents everything I value. Evidence based care, regenerative tools, precision when su...
04/22/2026

Form and Function Orthopaedics represents everything I value. Evidence based care, regenerative tools, precision when surgery is needed, and a commitment to protecting movement for the long term. It is a privilege to care for people who want to stay active and strong. And we are just getting started.

| f2ortho.com

04/21/2026

Here’s what nobody tells you about perimenopause – your mood isn’t just “hormones making you dramatic.” It’s your brain chemistry actually changing. Estrogen affects serotonin, dopamine, and cortisol regulation. So yes, that man just triggered a completely physiologically appropriate response.

And mood changes aren’t equal across the board. Research shows Black women often experience more severe and longer perimenopause transitions. Latina women report higher rates of mood symptoms. Asian women are frequently underdiagnosed because they present differently and are less likely to be asked. This is not one-size-fits-all. It never was.

But here’s what’s getting even less airtime: perimenopause is also doing something to your joints, your tendons, and your bones – right now, and quietly.

Estrogen is a joint protector. When it starts to fluctuate and drop, inflammation goes up. Cartilage thins faster. Tendons become stiffer and more injury-prone. Muscles lose mass faster than at any prior decade. Bone density begins its steepest decline. That “random” shoulder pain, the knee that started aching out of nowhere, the hip stiffness every single morning – that’s not just aging. That’s a hormonal shift with structural consequences nobody warned you about.

Long term? This sets the stage for early joint degeneration, osteoporosis, and the kind of wear that lands women in my OR decades earlier than necessary.

This is why I’m building JointSpan™ – a platform coming soon that treats your musculoskeletal health as the foundation of your longevity. Not a supplement. Not a trend. A science-backed, surgeon-led approach to keeping your joints, bones, and connective tissue strong through every decade of your life. Because protecting your joints in midlife isn’t vanity. It’s strategy.

Follow along for more – I’ll be sharing exactly what perimenopause does to your body and what you can actually do about it.

Follow on IG and on YouTube so you don’t miss the JointSpan™ launch.

04/20/2026

Your normal day is someone's dream. 🩺

Do it tired.

Do it scared.

Do it with love.

Do it connected.

Do it every day.

There are people who would give anything to do what you do. On the hard days, the long days, the days you question everything - remember that showing up IS the work. The consistency is the legacy.

This is why I do it. Every single day.

Follow for more or find me on YouTube 🎥

04/17/2026

They told me orthopaedics was too tough for a woman. Too hard to "find" a husband. Too hard to have a family.

Well. I ended up married to a doctor. Raised my kid. Fixed joints. Still dancing (and singing...and rapping...). 💅🏼

The people who told you what you couldn't do were never going to be the ones who got you there anyway. Do it anyway. Build it anyway. Show up anyway.

To every woman who was ever told the room wasn't built for her - pull up a chair. We're redecorating. 🩺✨

Follow or find me on YouTube

04/15/2026

That AI rendering of knee arthritis developing? Pretty accurate. And also pretty humbling to watch.

Here’s what’s actually happening inside that joint.

Cartilage breakdown is not just wear and tear from mileage. It is a biological process driven by the joint environment itself. When the joint is under stress, whether from injury, inflammation, weight load, or hormonal shifts, the synovial lining gets irritated and starts releasing inflammatory cytokines. Those cytokines trigger enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases, which essentially digest the collagen matrix that gives cartilage its structure and resilience. Once that process gets going, the cartilage softens, fibrillates, and thins. Bone starts compensating. Spurs form. The joint space narrows.

Pain comes from multiple sources at once. Cartilage itself has no nerve supply, so early damage is silent. But the synovium is highly innervated. So is the bone underneath. When inflammation is high, when the joint capsule is distended with fluid, when bone is exposed or stressed, that is when pain signals fire. That is why some people have significant structural damage and minimal pain, and others have relatively mild imaging findings and are barely functional.

Which brings me to the thing I say constantly: two x-rays that look identical do not mean two patients who will respond the same way.

The joint environment matters. Inflammation burden matters. Muscle support matters. Biology matters. Imaging is one data point, not the whole picture.

This is exactly why I practice the way I do at Form & Function Orthopaedics, and why I built JointSpan™ around the idea that protecting your joint environment proactively is the most powerful thing you can do. More on that soon.

Follow for more of this. There is a lot more to share.

04/13/2026

At 48, I was emceeing a gala, feeling good, fitting in my clothes, riding high.

I had no idea.

For a few years before menopause actually landed, I had mood shifts. Mysterious night sweats that would show up for weeks, then vanish for months. I figured I could deal with it.

Then it hit.

Both shoulders froze. At the same time. I was still operating with precision, but it did not always feel good. My knees ached. My body was sending signals I wasn’t fully reading yet.
Here’s what I wish more women knew, especially Asian women: menopause doesn’t always look the same. Research shows that Asian women tend to experience later onset and different symptom patterns, including less hot flash intensity but more musculoskeletal symptoms, sleep disruption, and mood changes that are easy to dismiss or misattribute.

And here’s why an orthopedic surgeon is talking to you about this: the joints and muscles I treat every single day are not separate from longevity. They ARE longevity. They are the infrastructure your life runs on.

That realization is what led me to create JointSpan™, a platform built around one idea: that your musculoskeletal health is the foundation of how well and how long you live. Not an afterthought. Not something you address after the damage is done. The starting point.

Something is coming. Follow along at so you don’t miss it.

04/11/2026

Orthopaedics needed more jazz hands. You're welcome. 🙌🏼

Turns out showing up fully yourself is the most radical thing you can do in a room that wasn't built for you. Whether it's the OR or a stage in Thailand, unbothered looks good on everyone.

If nobody told you today - your enthusiasm is not a liability. It is your superpower.

Follow for more of this energy (and actual joint preservation medicine 🦴✨)

04/11/2026

The Artemis II crew just returned from the farthest point any human has ever traveled from Earth. The average age of the Apollo astronauts who went to the Moon was 38. The average age of the Artemis II crew? 48.8. Over a decade older.

Christina Koch became the first woman, Victor Glover the first person of color, Jeremy Hansen the first non-US citizen, and Reid Wiseman the oldest person ever to travel beyond low Earth orbit.

This is what midlife looks like when you invest in your body and your longevity.

To get selected as an astronaut you need a graduate degree, years of technical mastery, often a military career, and then years of elite physical and mental training. These are not passive people waiting to feel better. They are the most rigorously prepared humans on the planet.

Generation X was told our best years were behind us. The Artemis II crew just proved that wrong from 252,000 miles away.

Your joints. Your bones. Your strength. Your stamina. These are the infrastructure of everything you want to do in the next 30 years. The science of musculoskeletal longevity is not just for elite athletes. It is for every person who refuses to slow down.

What would you do with a body that was built to go the distance?

Follow for more on joint health, longevity, and what midlife can actually look like.

04/10/2026

Stanford published a cartilage study and the internet lost its mind.

I get it. The headline was irresistible. “End to osteoarthritis?” Sign everyone up.

Here’s what’s actually true:

The science is real and it’s exciting. Researchers identified an enzyme that shuts down your cartilage’s repair signal as you age. Block the enzyme, the signal comes back, cartilage regenerates in the lab.

Here’s what the headline skipped:
This was tested on tissue removed during knee replacements. Not in a living joint. Not in a human body. Not in a clinical trial. A lab dish and a living joint are completely different environments, and we have seen promising therapies fail that transition more times than I can count.

Also, osteoarthritis isn’t just a cartilage problem. By the time most people are in enough pain to seek help, the bone underneath has already changed. You can’t just fix one piece of a broken system.

Where it DOES get genuinely exciting: early interception. If we catch joint degeneration before the damage becomes structural, this mechanism could be the key to stopping arthritis before it starts. That is a real paradigm shift. Just not today.

What IS available today: PRP, regenerative biologics, cartilage restoration procedures, and a preservation-first approach that treats your joint before it becomes a replacement conversation. That’s what we do every day at Form and Function Orthopaedics in Portland.

If you’re ready to take your joint health seriously right now, start with my free guide, “10 Steps to Lifelong Vitality,” at f2ortho.com. And if you want to work with us directly, visit f2ortho.com to learn more or request a consultation.
This is the kind of medicine I believe in. Not hype. Not waiting. Real options, right now, with an eye on what’s coming next.

Address

9555 SW Barnes Road, Suite 275
Portland, OR
97225

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 3pm

Telephone

+19719714325

Website

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