When children are injured playing soccer, hockey, football or even just jogging, there are extra concerns that don’t apply to adults. First, the bones are still growing, so we tend to take extra care to X-ray or MRI an inury if we suspect bony damage. Secondly, kids are more vulnerable to the side effects of drugs that we commonly give adults for the same injuries. For example, cortisone shots are often given into adult knees when injured, although only three times in a year due to potential damaging side effects which include permanent damage to the cartiledge. In a six year-old with the same knee injury, doctors are even more cautious about reaching for cortisone shots. Even advil, and other NSAID’s are hard for a child to tolerate, especially if pains continue for several weeks. Naturally, surgery is also more complicated for children, and certainly not something one should plunge into except when nothing else is working.
However, Medical Acupuncture can be a very powerful option for children. Because the treatment uses sterile needles, and because they are placed by an MD into the correct tissue level, sports injuries respond very quickly in kids. For those who dislike even the idea of needles, there are new cold-laser treatments that will work painlessly when applied to the appropriate acupuncture points on the skin.
Sports injuries often require a team approach in treatment; an assessment by a radiologist, an orthopedic surgeon, a physical therapist, a personal trainer, massage therapist, or even a chiropractor can all have their place in managing kid’s sports injuries. But so too can Acupuncture, because of its anatomic placement of needles, and its electro-stimulation deep into the injured areas. Because there are no side effects, the acupuncture is often the key to speeding up the recovery through some of the other modalities mentioned here. For more information, contact Dr. Peter Hanson at 303-733-2521, or look for us at www.peterhansonmd.com.