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Against the Grain with Dr. Chad Edwards | Tulsa Prolotherapy | Podcast 3 – Part 1
Chad: This is Dr. Chad Edwards, and you’re listening to podcast number 3 of Against the Grain.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Against the Grain podcast with Dr. Chad Edwards, where he challenges the status quo when it comes to medicine. We get into hot topics in the medical field with real stories from real patients to help you on your way to a healthy lifestyle. Get ready, because we’re about to go “Against the Grain.”
Bryan: This is Bryan Wilkes here with my good friend and real doctor, Dr. Chad Edwards.
Chad: Hey, Bryan. How are you today?
Bryan: How are you doing?
Chad: Doing very well, and yourself?
Bryan: How’s business over at the Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic?
Chad: We’re staying busy. They’re keeping me busy over there.
Bryan: That’s a plug, by the way. That’s your green light to tell us their sponsor.
Chad: That’s right.
Bryan: Give us your phone number over there.
Chad: Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic, we are your clinic if you are tired of the status quo, tired of making an appointment, going in, spending five minutes with the doctor. Here’s your problem; here’s your pill, you’re tired, fatigued, can’t figure out why. Have pain, some muscular-skeletal sports injuries, anything like that, we can help you. Call us at 918-935-3636 or visit our website at revolutionhealth.org. Lot of information up there as well. You can read about a lot of these topics to come in and get your appointment scheduled.
Bryan: That’s awesome. Hey, that’s a good plug. Hey, listen. You said sports, right?
Chad: Yes.
Bryan: I was going to ask you, who’s going to win the presidential race, right? You’re not going to answer that, right? Doctors, you sign an oath, right?
Chad: I quit predicting-
Bryan: Yeah, so who’s going to win the Superbowl?
Chad: … a long time ago.
Bryan: Who’s going to win the Superbowl? What about the national championship. Alabama OU, what is it? Clemson and, so OU or Alabama?
Chad: I would love, I’m a big 12 fan, so I would love to say OU but I-
Bryan: I’m going with OU.
Chad: … I will be pleasantly surprised.
Bryan: Yeah. I’m a little bit disappointed, but let’s go to our next sponsor who’s probably going to drop you after this. Upper Cervical Health Centers. You know these people, right?
Chad: Yeah, I’ve actually been a patient there.
Bryan: Yeah, I hear a lot of good things about them.
Chad: They’re fantastic.
Bryan: Chiropractic Center, right?
Chad: Yep.
Bryan: Patients report an incredible rate of recovery in all kinds of categories, right?
Chad: 75%, and they’re not just there for your spine, your neck pain, back pain, those kinds of things. They’re looking at overall health, and I’ve seen patients improve with their blood pressure, their hormones.
Bryan: Awesome.
Chad: It’s been amazing in some cases.
Bryan: Awesome. Let me give you their phone number. 918-742-2300, or you can visit their website at uppercervicaltulsa.com/newyou. Now let’s get right to it. This is a great topic for athletes out there. I really think that, because I wish I would have, the topic is “Needles over Knives,” but we’re going to talk about something that you’re extremely good at, and having a lot of success in, that I don’t think most people have heard of. How do you like that? It’s prolotherapy.
Chad: Absolutely, and so in prolotherapy, I’m going to apply that to PRP or platelet-rich plasma therapy. Stem cell has-
Bryan: That’s a mouthful.
Chad: It is.
Bryan: Yeah.
Chad: It may resonate with some people a little bit better. Tiger Woods had PRP and Kobe had PRP, and there’s been multiple people that have-
Bryan: Multiple well-known athletes.
Chad: Athletes, right, that have had PRP. A lot of information coming out about stem cells, so there’s going to be a lot of overlap with those. When we say “prolotherapy,” it stands for “proliferative,” or “proliferant” therapy. We’re trying to grow new collagen. We’ll talk about that a little bit, but the procedure is absolutely fantastic. It can help to heal these damaged ligaments and tendons, which we know is a source of a lot of pain.
Bryan: Right. That’s pretty cool. The topic is “Needles over Knives,” and for some people, like, “How is this all relate?” Literally, a lot of athletes are, and just people in general, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Bryan: Or former athletes and those of us that played football even in high school, and they’re getting older and they have all these injuries, typically go right under the knife right?
Chad: Yeah.
Bryan: That’s kind of a go to, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Bryan: I got a problem; I need to [inaudible 00:03:54] just cut that open, let’s do this. Let’s just cut it open, right?
Chad: Right.
Bryan: Cut open happy.
Chad: Right. When you look at sport sidelines, professional teams, who’s the team doc for, you know, Jinx? Who’s the team doc for these kinds of things?
Bryan: Right. You should know this.
Chad: Many times, it’s an orthopedic surgeon. You know, I love my orthopedic surgeon colleagues. However, are they primary care providers? I would argue that they’re not. They’re surgeons. What I found in my training is that, because I wanted to learn orthopedic medicine very well. I wanted to be very good at sports medicine. What I found is when I spent a lot of time with my orthopedic surgeon colleagues, that they were doing a lot of orthopedic surgery.
Bryan: Interesting, yeah.
Chad: I’m not a surgeon, so I don’t want to do surgery. I don’t want to take that patient to surgery. I think there’s a role for that. I think it absolutely has its place-
Bryan: Context, yeah.
Chad: … but I want your average athletic injury, I mean, how many of those actually need and would benefit from surgery? I would argue that we do too much surgery.
Bryan: Okay, so let’s back up a little bit. This whole prolotherapy thing. How did you get started with this?
Chad: Yeah, so, I’ll just tell you my story about how I got into prolotherapy. I was one of the battalion physicians in special forces group and one of our special operations, you know, the Green Berets-
Bryan: Right.
Chad: I was a doctor for those guys. With this, I’m working with basically these high-level athletes that are defending our nation. Had a guy, he was-
Bryan: That’s a good way to put it, because they really are.
Chad: Absolutely.
Bryan: I mean, they’re moving, shaking as much as a tailback for Alabama, right?
Chad: That’s exactly right, only carrying 5 times as much weight.
Bryan: And their life is at risk-
Chad: And getting shot.
Bryan: … literally.
Chad: Yeah.
Bryan: There’s that.
Chad: What those guys do is just absolutely amazing.
Bryan: Yeah.
