Make Pain a Thing of the Past – Car Accident – Physician Partners of America

Tag Archive for: Car Accident

 

Cyndi: Everyone’s familiar with arthritis, but do you know that it does not have to be a life sentence? Arthritis is a life-altering form of pain for so many people, but Dr. Rudy Gari from Florida Pain Relief Group is here to help. Welcome back, Dr. Gari.

Dr. Gari: Thank you.

Cyndi: So we all hear about arthritis, we talk about arthritis, but really what is arthritis?

Dr. Gari: So arthritis, if you break down the word, so itis means inflammation, and arthro means joints. So arthritis is basically an inflammation of your joints. And of course, your joints are what keeps the bones together. So you have joints throughout the entire body. That’s what allows us to bend and do things. So that can cause a lot of wear and tear. That wear and tear leads to inflammation. There are nerve endings in those joints, and it can get pretty painful.

Cyndi: We’ve heard of different types of arthritis. What’s the most common?

Dr. Gari: The most common type of arthritis is osteoarthritis.

Cyndi: Osteo?

Dr. Gari: Yes. In fact, most of us get some sort of arthritis. Even our late 20s it begins, 30s and 40s.

Cyndi: Is it pretty much inevitable that we’re all going to get some form of arthritis?

Dr. Gari: Unfortunately, most of us as we get older, we are gonna get arthritis. It doesn’t mean that you have to know that you have it. You kinda get these aches and so forth throughout the day. But most of us go about our daily lives just, you know, living as if nothing’s going on.

Cyndi: But there are some people their arthritis affects their everyday life and it can really be hard for them to function. So what can you do for people who have arthritis, either in the early stage or quite gradual?

Dr. Gari: The first thing that we do is to determine the type of arthritis, and that helps us to determine what the outcome might be. So let’s just say osteoarthritis, for example, because that’s really common. A lot of times, osteoarthritis causes joint pain everywhere. Most of the pain tends to be low back, cervical region. Our necks hold the head up. Our lower backs help us bend back-and-forth. Those are the daily activities. So we tend to focus on those joints because that’s what’s gonna improve your daily living as much as possible. Things that we can do, we mentioned that’s inflammation of the joints, so what we do is go in there to reduce the inflammation. Some sort of injections goes into those joints, there’s no surgery that’s involved. Two or three of these, if it relieves inflammation, there’s even other things such as radiofrequency, rhizotomies that I’ve mentioned before, that can help burn the little nerve endings that only cause pain.

Cyndi: Wow. We’ve heard about taking turmeric and things like that, and adding more things to our diet to help with inflammation, but that’s not necessarily going to be enough, is it?

Dr. Gari: What happens when you eat something, whether it’s a pill or whatever, it goes in your mouth and through your stomach, and then from there it gets absorbed, goes through your liver, and 95% gets broken down. So a very tiny, tiny fraction of what you’re taking is actually going to those joints. By us delivering the medication straight to those joints, we bypass all that.

Cyndi: Is it always a type of medication that you recommend, or do you have different therapies for arthritis?

Dr. Gari: Different therapies. Sometimes, actually, just moving around. Physical therapy, moving. I ask them to go in the pool, just move your joints more. Sleep. If you can get better sleep, your joints are gonna absorb some more fluid. That’s going to help out as well.

Cyndi: Right, but if you’re finding that it’s really hard to function, you can help.

Dr. Gari: Yes, we can.

Cyndi: You can get right in there and take care of it.

Dr. Gari: Absolutely.

Cyndi: Good stuff. Dr. Gari, thank you very much. Contact Florida Pain Relief Group to schedule your same-day appointment. You can visit their website, it is floridapainreliefgroup.com. Or you can give them a call right now, 844-KICK-PAIN, and you too can be pain-free. Thank you, again.

Dr. Gari: My pleasure.

Cyndi: We’ll be right back.

 

Interviewer: You don’t need me to tell you, car accidents can be a pain, literally, it can be a traumatic experience, of course, but that pain doesn’t have to become permanent. Dr. Rudy Gari, from Florida Pain Relief Group, joins us now once again to tell us how we need to make sure these injuries don’t go untreated. It seems like a simple thing, right? But most people are rushed right to the ER after an accident, aren’t they, Dr. Gari? Why is it important for them to see a pain relief doctor as well?

Dr. Gari: Well, what happens a lot in a car accident is you get what’s called a deceleration type of injury. Basically, you’re traveling 30 miles an hour and you come to a screeching halt very quickly. So that deceleration type of injury can cause injuries in and of itself. And normally it involves, it can be the joints, it could be your back, it could be your neck. And so that injury, again, a lotta what causes the pain is some sort of inflammation that is a direct result of that injury. So we take care of patients that have been involved in motor vehicle accidents. And whether it’s a disc herniation in the lower back, the neck, joint, wherever that might be. We even have some patients that, you know, they come and see us. And some of those patients, you know, because of a lot of patients that have been involved in a car accident, may have some sort of legal representation. They may not even have insurance. We will even take care of ’em because of that and we can work with their law firm if that’s what it takes. We just wanna make sure that this patient gets better.

Interviewer: Gets better. Now a lotta times you have a car accident and you might feel something, you’re not really sure if you feel something. How do you know when you should see someone when the pain might just be like a minor, temporary pain?

Dr. Gari: Well, what I tell my patients is if something is not normal, you know it Go see a doctor. Because it may be something a little mild…

Interviewer: Right now.

Dr. Gari: …right now, but it might be something a little, you know, deeper that’s going on. And we have to at least make a diagnosis, maybe physical therapy of something to make sure that you can get better, get back on your feet.

Interviewer: Is it typically…when people come and see after a car accident, is it a neck injury? I know you mentioned back, but neck is even more prevalent more than likely, right?

Dr. Gari: Well, one of the things that we see in car accidents a lot is what’s called a whiplash. So whiplash is when the back of your neck hits backwards and there are these nerves in the back of your neck that can cause a lotta inflammation there and you get what’s called an [inaudible 00:02:37], a really bad headache behind your head. We can help that quite a bit because, again, we just go in there, get that inflammation to go away. There’s different types of procedures we can do for that. So the neck injury is common because the head goes back and forth during that car accident.

Interviewer: Sure, yeah, it makes sense. And let’s talk about prevention because, you know, most people hopefully are wearing their seat belts. What other kinds of things can they do in their car because you never know when you’re gonna be hit from behind?

Dr. Gari: Well, some of the things that they need to be mindful of course is in this…you know, I’m not a driving instructor, but of course, you know, be defensive. If you anticipate something…in fact, there’s some car, I was driving my son’s car the other day and the car started slowing down. So these sensors are actually very helpful right now to try to prevent these injuries. Wear your seatbelt, make sure that your air bag is working, and brace yourself if you’re about to hit.

Interviewer: Okay, all right. Good advice. Thank you so much, Dr. Gari. Now you can contact Florida Pain Relief Group to schedule your same day appointment. You can visit their website, floridapainreliefgroup.com, or give them a call 844-KICK-PAIN, simple as that. Thanks again doctor, appreciate it. We’ll be right back with more “Daytime” right after this.