Did you know that June is National Men’s Health Month here in the US?
This is often over looked as Pride Month gets a lot of attention, but being that we are a practice that advocates for natural healing, let’s give the men a shout out in this blog and talk about ways that Regenerative Sport, Spine and Spa can help those men who are looking to feel their best, look their best, and operate at their best.
From joint pain, to muscle aches, hormone imbalances and fine lines and wrinkles, men often go on living life as best they can without seeking the aid of medical help until they are in dire straits.
This means most men may be suffering in silence so to speak. As a man writing this, I suffer with daily pains from a bout of injuries from when I was younger. This includes 2 shoulder surgeries and an ankle surgery. All of which occurred before the age of 30.
Now in my mid 40s, I sound like a bowl of rice crispies (snap, crackle, pop) every morning when my feet hit the ground. My first few steps are often accompanied by moans and groans that do little to get rid of the morning stiffness.
Most of you men can relate I’m sure.
As I make my way to the mirror to discover a little more weight hanging on than I desire, a few more grays, and few more wrinkles staring back at me.
Most of us just attribute this to getting older and this is the natural order of things. After all, as long as I’m above ground what’s there to complain about.
While most of this is common in the aging process, it is definitely NOT normal. We have all been told that age old myth of things that just “happen with age,” but I am here to tell you that you can defy the aging process to some degree without another surgery or another medication or another doctor telling you, “Its just part of the aging process.”
First let’s talk about the aesthetics — the way you look — because after all, if you look good, you feel good right? (Insert side eye)
The Hair
It’s normal for your scalp to lose as many as 80-100 hairs a day. Though that may sound like a lot, in most cases, these hairs grow back. But if you’re one of the millions of men suffering from patterned baldness, the hair you lose each day may not grow back.
Hair loss can have a dramatic effect on your self-confidence and self-esteem. But all is not lost, and you don’t have to spend the rest of your life hiding your hair, or lack thereof, under a hat.
For instance, a few years back I had some hair loss around the crown of my head that was due to a shampoo product that was irritating my scalp and causing dermatitis. If you know me, you know my hair is a staple, so loosing it was bad news — haha.
Luckily, our office has a treatment for this exact problem.
When you’re struggling with hair loss, you may find it hard to believe that your body has everything it needs to help regrow your lost hair. But your body sometimes needs a little extra help to get the regenerative powers from your body to the places that need it the most.
PRP therapy is a form of regenerative medicine created from a sample of your own blood. Though your blood is mostly liquid (plasma), it contains solid components too, including red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.
You may know that the platelets in your blood are responsible for forming blood clots to stop bleeding, but these tiny blood cells also contain specialized proteins called growth factors that heal the damage too.
For PRP therapy, we take a small sample of your blood and run it through a centrifuge that separates the tiny platelets from the other components in your blood. Then we make the PRP preparation for treatment.
When injected into your body, the high concentration of platelets from your PRP therapy gives your body a powerful regenerative boost that stimulates the hair follicle and reproduces new healthy hair.
The Spare Tire and The Energy Loss
As we get older, despite how often we workout and how healthy we may or may not eat, there still seems to be a few pounds that want to linger around our midsection. And some days I’m definitely struggling to find the same energy I had 5-10 years ago.
Guess what fellas? Women go through menopause, which is a hormonal change, but so do you. It’s called andropause.
While not as pronounced as women, men, too, experience a natural decline in their reproductive hormone levels, namely testosterone. However the deficit occurred, it can leave you with many of the following symptoms of low T, the common name for low testosterone levels.
If you’re just not feeling quite like yourself, it’s worth having our physicians check your hormone levels to see if the cause stems from there.
Those Joint Pains
Have you stopped playing a sport you love, exercising, getting on the floor with kiddo (or grand kiddos) because of a nagging pain? You’ve either ignored it, gotten a steroid shot for it, or are just waiting for it to be bad enough to do something about it?
If you’re using medicines and steroids as a way to avoid having surgery, ask yourself how much more time you’re willing to forego doing the things you love? 2-3 injections a year with occasional physical therapy can get costly and prolong the inevitable surgery that is coming your way. The truth is that medicine nor steroids nor surgery actually produces healing at the direct cause of pain.
This is where the discussion around regenerative medicine, PRP and stem cell therapy come into play. These naturally occurring medicines are part of our bodies unique ability to heal after an injury. Using the blood or platelet rich plasma (PRP) from your body for tendinitis and recurring inflammation can actually trigger a healing response. Think about it this way — you get a cut on your arm and it bleeds. The blood has unique properties that help clean the cut so you avoid infection and then the blood triggers a healing response so your body can lay down new tissue and skin. In a week or 2 it’s like it never happened. We can use your blood in a similar fashion but drawing it, spinning it down so the healing properties are separated from the red blood cells, then injecting that solution (PRP) back into your inflamed rotator cuff or other area of chronic pain and inflammation.
Using stem cell therapy works in a similar fashion. Stem cells are the building blocks of our bodies. They have a unique ability to become any type of tissue that is present in our bodies. That’s right — they can become bone, muscle, stomach cells, heart cells, ANYTHING. When we harvest them from our own bodies in a very concentrated dose, we can then place directly into your knee cartilage that’s degenerated or that disk in your back that keeps causing you pain. Doing this supplies the area with a dose of regenerative soup that can do its job on actually healing the source of the pain and dysfunction.
Final Thoughts
Gents, there are natural remedies out there that will keep in the game of life — looking and feeling your best. Your health matters and taking care of yourself means you’re able to be fully present for those around you.
You matter. So does your healing.
If you’re looking for better ways of healing, I want to encourage you to reach out to us and schedule a consult for your hair loss, your hormones, or those aching joints — or all 3 if that’s you.
You can schedule on our website by clicking the “Request Appointment” button on the homepage of our website, www.regens3.com.
