In their first ever “Ask the Doc” event, PRO TO COL Sports System talks to Dr. Darryl Bates, a doctor of family medicine and sports medicine. They discussed the importance of proper diagnosis and getting the right treatment for any type of injury. This is yet another great video for mature athletes and fitness enthusiasts.
Sports and Holistic Medicine
First, Dr. Bates provides a background of his practice. According to him, he wasn’t into conventional medicine because his aim is to provide his patients with holistic medicine. This prompted him to study Chinese medicine and practiced it for a long time. After his stint with Chinese medicine, he returned to family medicine, delivering lots of babies and treating people. Then, he ventured into sports medicine, which he found out to be quite similar to acupuncture.
Today, he practices regenerative sports medicine, which focuses on the things that the human body does naturally in order to heal and correct itself. He advocates and encourages the use of treatments such as Prolototherapy and PRP therapy because he believes they are much safer and more effective than conventional drugs and surgeries.
Not Getting The Best Treatment for Your Injury?
According to Dr. Bates, it’s not the fault of the primary care provider you’re seeing if you’re not getting relief or the best treatment for your injury. Orthopedic surgeons, for instance, have to see 8,000 people or more within a week just to find the five or six people they will be able to do a surgery on. If you’re not a surgical candidate, you’re just going to get told to get physical therapy.
Also, many orthopedic surgeons haven’t been properly trained to examine and diagnose certain types of injury. Dr. Bates knows this first hand because he teaches a lot of resident doctors, particularly those practicing family medicine, DPT or doctoral physical therapy students, and athletic trainers. When he teaches them, he said he makes sure that they know how to do a really good knee or shoulder exam.
Proper Diagnosis is Key for Injury Treatment
Unfortunately, not all doctors have had this kind of training. This is why 30% of the time, doctors will just tell you to take pain medicine, rest, get physical therapy, and see what will happen next. If your injury is not diagnosed properly, it’s very likely that you’ll find little to no long-term relief from your current condition.
When you have shoulder, knee, or any type of injury, Dr. Bates said you’d want to have people that can actually diagnose you properly, put their hands on you and get you back to the work or sport that you love most. You’d also want to have someone who can teach you how to do the corrections for yourself. This will help you avoid re-injuries in the future and enable you to learn what your body feels like to do physical activities the right way.
