Attention Athletes: You Don’t Need Surgery to Fix Your Sports Injury

Bumps and bruises, sprains and strains—any type of sports injury is likely to require some healing time.  But, contrary to popular belief, the majority of sports injuries do not require surgery. There are natural methods and supplements that heal your body in a much healthier and less invasive way. Also, saving you weeks of hospital payments, healing, and downtime.

Dr. Alexander Kulick has built his entire medical practice around this philosophy. With his training in both Western medicine and alternative therapies, Dr. Kulick knows exactly how to heal sports injuries and keep his patients out of the operating room. Orthopedic surgeons will want to schedule you for surgery the minute you walk in the door. Their solutions will promise short-term success, but you may suffer when it comes to long-term results. Dr. Kulick’s treatments aim for holistic and long-lasting wellness.

Here are just a few non-surgery methods for treating sports injuries:

• Ultrasound:. Musculo-skeletal(MSK) Ultrasound is extremely useful when it comes to treating sports injuries with injections. Dr. Kulick is specially trained in using ultrasound to visualize the exact location of nerves and tissues in the body. He uses an ultrasound-guided injection of saline to carefully free entrapped nerves, such as carpal tunnel, a condition  that is usually treated surgically but Dr. Kulick’s ultrasound it is a procedure can be done in the office in less than 40 minutes, with only a band aid to show for it . Most torn muscles, tendons, and  meniscus  tears can also be repaired by injection.

• Acupuncture: Many individuals use acupuncture to treat pain, but it is also useful in treating acute and chronic sports injuries. Patients treated by Dr. Kulick report the following benefits:

• Reduced swelling and inflammation
• Less pain
• Fewer spasms
• Improved circulation
• Improved mobility

Acupuncture is a very low-risk, well-tolerated treatment for: sprains, tendonitis, tennis elbow, runner’s knee, IT band problems, shin splints, muscle tears, and others. Westernized treatments for these injuries are usually much more invasive and involve a long recovery period that could keep you sidelined for months.

• Nutritional medicine: Dr. Kulick is specialized in using herbal medicine to treat the underlying causes of sports injuries, not just the symptoms. In fact, proper nutrition and herbal supplements can heal the body from the inside out. With Dr. Kulick’s precise guidance, herbal supplements are used to relieve swelling, inflammation and muscle spasms. Surgery cuts through and weakens the body, while nutritional medicine strengthens susceptible tissues and can help prevent future injuries.

• PRP or Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy: The integrity of all of our joints — knee, wrist, hip, shoulder, ankle — are maintained by ligaments and tendons. Essentially ligaments and tendons are the rope that binds bones and joints together.  Either through sports injury or age, there is wear and tear that takes a major toll on our ligaments.    With PRP treatment the patient’s own blood is placed in a centrifuge leaving a serum high in platelets.  When these platelets are injected into the injured area it works as a laser guided missile to begin the healing process via an inflammatory response.  This is a non-surgical option that can be completed between 3-6 treatments, approximately 3 weeks apart.  Results are best when Ultrasound is used to visualize and guide the injection.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional sports player, a recreational athlete or just an exercise junkie- no one wants to be injured. Everybody wants a quick-fix that will get them back in action as soon as possible.  Surgery seems like the ultimate solution that will fix the injury and strengthen the body. But, in many cases, it only extends healing time and weakens the body. Natural treatments like ultrasound, acupuncture, nutritional medicine and PRP can non-invasively treat the root cause of the sports injury. By getting this type of treatment from an alternative medicine specialist like Dr. Kulick, you are ensuring that your body will be free from swelling, inflammation, free radicals, pain, and any other element that could hold you back from being your best.

Dr. Alexander Kulick’s unique medical background guarantees patients the best of conventional and non-traditional treatments with integrative medicine in NYC. Dr. Kulick received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. His postgraduate work was completed at Columbia University Graduate School, with a research fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering to conduct stem cell research. He is a graduate of the Sackler School of Medicine, University of Tel Aviv. Trained in Internal Medicine and Board Certified in Emergency Medicine, Dr. Kulick served in the ER for seventeen years, most recently as Senior Physician in the ER at Wykoff Heights Medical Center, a member of the Columbia Presbyterian Healthcare System. Prior to this Dr. Kulick was a ER attending at New York University-Downtown Hospital.  You can visit his website: www.dralexanderkulick.com