Sports Injuries

What is a sports injury?

A sports injury is any type of injury that occurs during physical activity. There are a number of reasons sports injuries occur, but the most common include failing to warm up before exercise, improper form, playing contact sports, or putting too much strain on your body when you haven’t been regularly physically active.

What are the different types of sports injuries?

There are many different types of sports injuries that Dr. Chang can treat, including:

• Shin splints
• Tennis elbow
• Hamstring strain
• Patellofemoral syndrome (knee injury)
• ACL tear
• Rotator cuff injury
• Muscle strain
• Sprains

While relaxation is crucial to your recovery following a sports injury, Dr. Chang can help speed up the healing process and prevent future injury with a number of holistic techniques and treatments.

How are sports injuries treated?

Dr. Chang avoids the use of invasive surgery and addictive medications to relieve sports injury pain. Instead, he utilizes your body’s natural healing abilities to alleviate pain and prevent future injury. Some of the most common sports injury treatments Dr. Chang offers are:

Cold laser therapy

Cold laser therapy, or low-level light therapy (LLLP), stimulates your body’s healing process by using low-level infrared light. The light passes through your injured tissues to increase blood circulation, oxygen utilization, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production. This helps heal injuries and reduce pain if you have a condition like tendinosis, plantar fasciitis, muscle strain, diabetic neuropathy, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and more.

Perineural injection therapy (PIT)

During a PIT injection, Dr. Chang injects diluted dextrose (D5W) into inflamed or irritated nerves that are causing you pain. This injection provides almost instantaneous pain relief for chronic conditions like back pain, groin pain, post-surgical pain, chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS), Achilles tendinosis, neck pain, and whiplash.

Prolotherapy

Also known as regenerative injection therapy (RIT), prolotherapy stimulates your body’s natural healing process without the use of pain medication. It’s used to treat conditions like arthritis, sports injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, muscle and ligament strain, and more.

Ozone therapy

Ozone therapy uses ozone, a colorless gas made out of three oxygen atoms, to repair damaged tissues. This type of therapy can help speed up the healing process following a sports injury and alleviate chronic pain.

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy

PRP therapy isolates the platelet-rich plasma in your blood and injects it straight into the site that is causing you pain. PRP therapy stimulates the healing process to repair damaged tissues, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints.

Orthopedic acupuncture

Orthopedic acupuncture, which involves inserting thin needles in predetermined points around the body, targets musculoskeletal issues and sports injuries to relieve muscle tension and reduce pain.

Stem cell therapy

Dr. Chang can take stem cells and inject them directly into damaged joints, tissues, muscles, and more to repair damage.

For more information about sports injury treatment, call David Chang, ND, LAC, at Open Wellness PDX or schedule an appointment online.