Regenerative Orthopedics Isn’t About Chasing Pain—It’s About Fixing What’s Broken

You mentioned that you don’t consider yourself a pain physician, which is a really interesting perspective. Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that?

Yeah, for sure. I think the question would be: why do I not consider myself a pain physician? I consider myself a non-operative regenerative orthopedist. I’m searching for root cause injuries and dysfunction that ultimately lead to a patient’s pain.  

Pain is simply information - it’s your body telling you that there is a problem that needs your attention.  So it is typically pain that leads people to our office.  

As some authors have rightly pointed out, looked at in this light, pain is a gift. Because without the ability to sense it worse problems would ensue.

So I feel my biggest benefit to patients is not in “chasing their pain” but in searching for the root causes of injury and the resulting dysfunction that ultimately leads to their pain.  

Once we’ve identified the actual root causes of the painful body part, we can then create a rational treatment plan to restore those injured areas to health and ultimately see their pain dissipate.

We first perform a highly detailed and unique biomechanical physical examination and strength analysis to help identify areas of suspected injury. Then at the time of their treatment, we use ultrasound guided anesthetic injections to precisely locate and grade the extent of these injuries and treat them with the appropriate regenerative treatment type.   

Ultimately our goals are as follows: restoring strength, stability, and function to the body. The endgame is functional recovery, not temporary relief.  Once the tissues are healed then physical therapy and bodywork are much more effective to strengthen those previously injured areas, release the tissues that have been dysfunctionally tight and spastic, and with time the pain begins to dissipate.  We may need to do some ultrasound guided nerve hydrodissections to help release some pain-causing entrapped nerves after the tissues have healed as well.  Shockwave treatments can help smoothe out the tissues at this later stage as well.

So you’re more focused on restoring function rather than targeting the orthopedic pain itself?

Exactly. I hear this all the time from patients: “I went to PT and it made things worse. Then I got a steroid shot and it felt better for a week or two, but the pain came right back.” This is because when you try to strengthen injured tissues it can increase the pain.  So if physical therapy doesn’t lead to recovery in 3-4 months time, then it may mean the injuries are too significant for exercise alone to heal.  Steroid injections just calm the immune system for a few weeks but don’t heal the tissues either.  Thus, the space between physical therapy and surgery—that’s where regenerative orthopedics stands strong.

I’m treating the source of the dysfunction, not just the symptom of pain. About 95% of the injuries I see don’t require surgery, and we can treat them effectively with the right non-operative approach and excellent post-procedural physical therapy.

Can you give an example of how you get to the root cause of orthopedic pain?

Let’s say someone comes in and says, “My right butt hurts.” Well, that right glute is hurting probably because it's injured or overloaded. Your body has compensated by relying heavily on that side because something else is broken—like maybe your left sacroiliac ligament is loose, the left glute isn’t firing, and your core muscles are injured or weak on that side.

The body is incredibly efficient at figuring out a “workaround” to the injured tissue—so it does a substitution pattern (which is dysfunctional) and leans on the right glute to do all the work. That right glute becomes the “hero.” And one of my favorite phrases is: “Don’t torture the hero- it’s not the problem.

If I just treat the pain in the right glute (which is not the root cause of their pain), I’m missing the real issue. The hero is doing all the work. The problem is actually on the other side—and the left glute is “getting away with murder.” The right glute is just in a dysfunctional relationship and is overburdened and the pain is it “asking for help.”  So the goal is to repair what’s broken elsewhere. This might mean healing the left SI ligament, rebuilding its core to glute muscle-fascia-ligament unit, and to finally let the right side relax.

Talk about how your approach has really evolved over time at Breakthrough.

Definitely. In the first five to seven years of doing regenerative injections, like most physicians and PT’s I focused mostly on where the pain was. And that approach helped partially but didn’t always get people where they wanted to go. It didn’t restore full function—and ultimately, it didn’t consistently eliminate their pain long-term.

Now, I treat the dysfunction and soft tissue injuries at the root, usually beginning in their core muscles Where’s the weakness? Where’s the breakdown in muscle-fascia-tendon structure? That’s what we have to address. Only then can the patient work on strengthening that previously injured muscle and regain function and power.  Honestly, it’s not that different from life in general—find the broken places, do the work to heal them, and you can move forward stronger, reasonably expecting better results.

What happens after you restore orthopedic function?

Once we’ve restored integrity to the muscle, fascia, tendon, or ligament, now you can go to PT. Now your body is ready to be strengthened and loaded safely. Sometimes after a month or two we still need to cool things down—maybe with nerve hydrodissection or shockwave treatments—but we’re no longer relying on the overloaded area to carry the whole burden.

That’s our job: get your body to a place where it can handle functional loading again. Sure, if something small is still lingering—a little nerve or tendon that needs a touch-up treatment—we’ll take care of it. But we’re not primarily chasing pain symptoms- we’re looking for restoration of strength and function. We want to hear about your pain and address it for sure, but from a different viewpoint.  We’re really looking to restore  your body to function better than it did before, and this is why it takes a team to get there- you, the physician and the therapist, body worker or movement therapist are all key members to your healing journey.

So pain relief is part of the goal, but it’s not the starting point for getting back to myself?

Exactly. I’m not insensitive to pain—my goal is to eliminate it so people can live fully, do what they love and be with the people they care about. But we get there by repairing what’s broken, not by numbing what hurts. It’s a philosophical difference from traditional Pain Management in how we approach healing- we’re Regenerative Orthopedists at heart.

At Breakthrough Regenerative Orthopedics, our physicians don’t just mask pain—we uncover its root cause and help the body heal from the inside out. Our non-operative, function-first approach restores strength and stability, so you can get back to doing what you love without relying on temporary fixes. Ready to move beyond the pain and into recovery? Book a 90-minute evaluation today and take the first step toward long-term healing.