Back Pain: Get Back to Your Game!
Whether you are an elite athlete or a recreational athlete, back pain and injury can be a personal low point. Regardless of the sport-skiing, basketball, football, gymnastics, ice skating, soccer, running, golf, or tennis-ALL create challenges to the spine. The spine undergoes a lot of stress, absorption of load, twisting, turning, and bodily impact. Even for the most fit of elite athletes, these strains can cause back pain and injury. Sometimes the back pain in athletes can be traced to a specific event or trauma whereas others are brought about by repetitive minor injuries that result in micro traumas.
The Goal: Get Back to Your Game!
Unfortunately many athletes are hesitant if not downright opposed to getting help for back pain. Many minimize or deny complaints or symptoms to avoid potential consequences. The thought of decreased activity-missing a workout or missing a practice is not appealing. The thought of losing a choice position, missing a competition, letting the team down-being removed from the game, for the short or long term-just not acceptable! To say nothing of what this can do to your self esteem, self worth and perhaps even financial stability.
The Goal: Get Back to Your Game!
Too many athletes “deal with it” and tolerate the pain. They use some OTC anti-inflammatory tablets or gels or crèmes and “tough it out”, risking further injury by making demands on a traumatized spine and leading to possibly more serious injury resulting in even greater loss of time practicing and competing.
Back Pain & Injuries
Back pain is a symptom of problem or injury. Muscle strains, ligament sprains, and soft tissue contusions account for as much as 97% of back pain in the general adult population. The majority of athletes with low back pain have a benign source of pain and with proper diagnosis and treatment we can get them back to their activity with minimal if any disruption.
Regenerative Orthopedic Medicine for Back Pain
While most back pain responds to conservative treatment with relative rest, anti-inflammatories, stretching, and strengthening, you may have pain that isn’t responding. Perhaps you have an MRI that doesn’t explain why you are having the pain or that shows damage for which surgery is being recommended. Maybe you have had injections to address the pain but still are not improved. In these cases, regenerative orthopedic evaluation can be very helpful. We will examine you for commonly overlooked problems that often do not show on MRI such as ligamentous instability and facet syndrome. Your treatment will be reviewed and every effort will be made to clarify the diagnosis. Especially in cases where surgery is being recommended, regenerative procedures may offer an effective alternative treatment.
By using highly targeted regenerative orthopedic injections into areas of spine injury including ligaments, joints, and discs, we can work to get you back to your game-comfortably. This might include stem cell injections and platelet rich plasma injections (PRP) to quicken recovery from sprains and strains and to repair damaged ligaments, discs, and joints. Anti-inflammatory and growth factors in these regenerative injections facilitate the non-operative removal and repair of damaged tissue which allows stabilizing muscles to strengthen. These are same-day procedures done in as little as an hour causing minimal discomfort and virtually no down time. Often patients experience decreased symptoms within one week but the full effect takes 2-3 months.
Drive the Body’s Power, Return to ‘Body Strong’
To get help for back pain and injury, restore strength, range of motion and flexibility or learn more about Regenerative Orthopedic Medicine treatments including stem cells and platelet rich plasma (PRP) injections, schedule a consultation with Daniel Southern, M.D. by calling 203-702-6629 or visiting www.regenerativeorthopedicmedicinect.com, Google+, www.facebook.com/DanielSouthernMD.
