About nine million people incur sports injuries every year. At Tarpon Interventional Pain & Spine Care, board-certified physician Lewis Frazier, Jr. , MD, treats sports injuries using the most advanced non-surgical technology available today. If you’re ready to recover and return to your favorite activities better than before, call the Plano, Texas, office for an appointment today.
Sports Medicine Q & A
What are the symptoms of sports injuries?
Sports injuries can cause a wide variety of symptoms. Most sports injury symptoms occur in an isolated area like your arm, shoulder, leg, or foot. Some common symptoms are:
- Bruising
- Red skin
- Swelling
- Inability to exert pressure on the affected body part
- Inability to lift the affected body part
- Popping, clicking, or locking at the injury site
- Decreased range of motion
- Weakness or instability
Traumatic sports injuries, such as crashing into another player and fracturing an ankle as you fall, can cause immediate issues. Overuse injuries like Achilles tendinitis tend to build up over time, so your symptoms gradually increase along with internal tissue damage.
What are the most common sports injuries?
At Tarpon Interventional Pain & Spine Care, Dr. Frazier, Jr. offers treatment for all types of sports injuries, including:
- Sprains
- Strains
- Rotator cuff tears
- Fractures
- Joint dislocation
- Tennis elbow
- Tendinitis
- Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears
- Tendon tears
- Torn meniscus
Dr. Frazier, Jr. can help with your sports injury, whether it’s a new issue or something you’ve been battling for a while.
When should I seek pain management help for sports injuries?
Your body can often repair milder damage, like minor sprains, if you rest and follow conservative care guidelines, including ice, elevation, and light compression. More serious damage, however, requires another approach.
If you’re in severe pain, can’t use or bear weight on the affected body part, or have significant weakness in the area of injury, even after rest and conservative care, it’s time to see Dr. Frazier, Jr. for an accurate diagnosis and personalized treatment plan.
How do epidural steroid injections help with sports injuries?
Many people who seek interventional pain management for sports injuries have already tried the most conservative approaches without the desired results. Dr. Frazier, Jr. usually continues conservative care, especially physiotherapy, while adding innovative treatments to stimulate healing and rapid pain relief.
Epidural steroid injections are often the next step if initial care isn’t adequate. An epidural steroid injection combines an anesthetic to numb pain and a corticosteroid to reduce tissue inflammation. This can tame your pain for an extended period, allowing you to participate in physiotherapy comfortably.
Dr. Frazier, Jr. injects the steroid into the epidural space, directly around the affected tissue, so it can quickly start working to calm your pain. Lumbar epidural steroid injections treat low back pain, cervical injections can relieve neck and upper back pain, and thoracic injections can fight middle back pain.
What other sports medicine treatments are available?
Tarpon Interventional Pain & Spine Care also offers innovative sports medicine treatments, such as:
Regenerative medicine
Regenerative medicine injections, including mesenchymal stem cells from your bone marrow, amniotic fluid, and platelet-rich plasma from your blood, infuse your injury with natural substances that stimulate tissue renewal.
Radiofrequency ablation
Radiofrequency ablation may be a good option for sports injuries that linger. This treatment deactivates the nerves involved in pain signaling. Although it doesn’t repair the injury, it allows you to continue your activities comfortably in cases where you want to avoid surgery. The results from radiofrequency ablation can last up to 18 months.
If you need help with a sports injury, call Tarpon Interventional Pain & Spine Care or click the provided link now.