Dr. Baxter's Blog

Handling Pain for the Student Athlete

An alternative option for pain care management and sport injuries Injuries are inevitable. While few are life or participation-ending, any injury can take your student athlete temporarily out of the game. From a minor bruise to an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, what does the student athlete do? While times are changing, some “old-school” schools used to have opioids in a desk to keep valuable players in the game. We know more now about dangerous pain relief, as well as new technology to help heal healthily. Why Student-athletes Need Opioid Alternatives Losing play time or appearing to be less-than-tough can be devastating to any student athlete. When a coach is urging play despite an injury, student athletes are in a bad situation. First, they need to know that no matter how valuable they are to the team, taking an opioid – theirs or anyone else’s- to keep them in the game is not healthy or fair to them. Second, while opioids may be prescribed when an injury is severe, the risk of opioid use disorder increases after three days so make sure the prescription is small. Explore Opioid Free Options Along those lines, most recreational opioid use starts in parents’

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May 3, 2022

Staying Active & Pain Free As a Senior – Free Webinar

Get in Shape with Exercise and without the Pain! Baby boomers are living longer. Why? Because Baby boomers are acquiring knowledge, asking questions, eating better, attending physical therapy and finally, are exercising in some form or another. However, in my 21-year career as both a physical therapist and personal trainer, most seniors don’t know where to begin when it comes to starting an exercise program. Reserve your spot for our “How to Stay Active When Older” with Physical Therapist Chris Gellert. So where do you begin? First, a reasonable starting goal is vital. Exercise is an effective way to get in shape, deal with an injury, lower blood pressure and improve heart vitality!  Take advantage of free resources like this webinar to learn about additional strategies to stay active and pain free.  Like any new resolution, though, there is a tendency to aim too high and quit too soon. Exercise comes in many shapes and forms. With a good pair of sneakers, you can’t go wrong starting with a walking program:  15 Minutes 1 to 3 times per week Walk at your pace Second, make the goal fit your needs. Research has shown that women over the age of 50 are

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April 1, 2022

Pain Management Using M-stim vs. E-stim

Pain Management Using M-Stim vs. E-Stim To understand how to engage in natural pain management to treat aches and pains, you need to understand a bit of biology and how the human body perceives pain.   The body has specialized nerve endings that sense touch. These include: The Meissner corpuscles, which perceive low-frequency vibrations, such as an object moved across the skin The Pacinian corpuscles, which are a lot like Meissner in that they tell about the dynamic qualities of stimuli Merkel disks help us sense pressure and texture Ruffini corpuscles, which are located in the tendons and ligaments and can help with the sensation of stretch These are triggered by specific frequencies of movement or mechanical pressure, and are transmitted on large, fast groups of A and B nerves that overpower small, fast, free Ad nerve endings that transmit pain. The Role of Nerve Endings in Pain Management To put it in physical terms, think about the body’s pain management system this way: Putting icy menthol (like Tiger Balm) on a hurt shoulder makes the fast pain signal less intense (Meissner). Pressing your hip when you bang it on a table or using acupressure to relieve pain (Merckel) Stretching

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March 26, 2022
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Spring into the Season with Cryovibration, an opioid-free pain management alternative

Spring is inviting everyone to get outside! Spring is in the air, which means many of us will get outside to garden, play golf, tennis or even go for a hike. Watch overdoing it! It is easy to get immersed in the garden for a few hours or play golf and forget to stretch. When we overdo an activity using a muscle or area that doesn’t typically get a lot of use, this can lead to the appropriately named “overuse injury”. Learn More about VibraCool Watch overdoing it! What is an overuse injury? An overuse injury is a term used to describe an injury that occurs from tissue damage resulting from repetitive demand over a period of time.  Rowing a boat, squatting and pulling weeds, or trying to keep up with a friend who plays golf or tennis all the time are frequent scenarios. When you hear people talking about golfer’s elbow, tennis elbow, IT band issues, or even plantar fasciitis, all are types of overuse injuries. Most treatments call for isolating the muscle with slow stretching and returning to use, or changing the way the joint moves. Those elastic bands you see people wearing on their arms? It’s an attempt to change

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March 22, 2022

Don’t Like Needles? Here Are Facts & Solutions

Addressing needle fear is critical to the public health plan for the rollout of the COVID vaccine. Dr. Baxter has researched vaccine refusal for 15 years. Her recent data indicates that identifying anxiety and reducing pain with the first injection could dramatically improve the second #COVID19 vaccine uptake by as much as 35% and help save lives.

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January 13, 2021

Power Over Pain: Home Care Management

Julius Caesar said “it is easier to find men who will volunteer to die than endure pain with patience.” Dealing with pain takes more than enduring; for chronic pain, it requires strategy and persistence. Pain relief is a marathon, not a sprint, but with an understanding of the nature of pain and new tools home pain management can actually be easier than in a healthcare setting. Understanding Pain: The experience of pain is not just nerves firing and signaling the brain. Instead, pain is a complex array of causes and consequences. As an alarm system, pain notifies the brain of danger, just like an alarm system around a vulnerable basement window. With persistent threats, more and more alarms are installed in an attempt to keep the location safe. Once the cause of the danger is gone, alarms may be so sensitive that they still go off. While physical alarms can be uninstalled, dismantling the alarms from chronic pain is less straightforward but just as necessary. Chronic pain physically changes the brain itself: before knee replacement, the size of the thalamus enlarges from processing pain. Within 6 schrager crunch months after the bad knee (and pain) are gone, it returns to

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March 26, 2020

Weaning Off Acute Opioid Prescribing

    “Three to Take or Throw”, “Four to Fill or Flush” – how and why we wean off acute opioid prescribing.     Unlike other drug crises, 80% of opioid addiction starts with a pill prescribed by a physician or dentist. 76 Billion pills, it seems, prescribed in the 6 years that led to 100,000 deaths. The late 1990’s ushered in a perfect storm for prescribing: humanitarian good will, the desire to correct pain treatment inequities (that persist), the rise of the HMO and “patient as customer”, and a giant push from pharma accompanied by overt and covert teaching that “opioids aren’t addictive if you’re really in pain.” We know more now. We know 10-15% of people are susceptible to addictive highs beyond pain relief due to genetic speed of metabolism. We know 5.8% of young adults who got opioids for wisdom tooth removal are addicted within a year, compared to 0.4% who did not. Most importantly, we know that for most outpatient injuries and surgeries, OPIOIDS ARE INFERIOR TO OVER THE COUNTER CARE. It is time to wean ourselves off of writing for opioids. Considering risk, efficacy, and why we prescribe, we can change our habits of writing opioids for acute

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March 15, 2020

Power Over Pain: Migraines

One of the hard parts of determining what works for migraines is that the same pain can be brought on by a lot of different causes. Different solutions can work for different people.

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January 15, 2020

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