Metabolic Support For Sports Injuries

Your ability to resist injury, train and recover, as well as heal from injury is directly related to the metabolic health of your body. Many athletes are not instructed on the importance of the metabolic aspect of joint health. Reliance on outdated research (or in many cases, no research) guides athletes into a false sense of security in regard to their metabolic health. Namely that looking fit means your metabolically fit and healthy. Therefore, they rely on information related to energy production, such as carb loading, or using sports drinks for hydration. Unfortunately, this often times will set up athletes for injuries because their habits are not in line with prolonged overall health, nor prolonged joint health. Poor dietary habits are at the foundation of this problem and most athletes are not well supported to resist these challenges. One need only observe a youth sports event for the number of children wearing braces, wraps or supports. Or, the the post game snacks to see where a majority of these poor habits begin and are reinforced by well meaning parents and coaches. Whether we are talking about the casual athlete or the professional, the metabolic component is vital not only for the overall health of the individual, but also their performance ability.

Click on any of the words in the following list to get more information about how each item is related to the health of your joints. This information will help you better understand the role that proper metabolic function has in the health of our joints. Additionally, it should become clear that your metabolic function is influenced by your daily habits and this is the basis for resistance to, and recovery from injury. If care is not made to be mindful of these metabolic factors, your injury may take longer to recover, or you may recover with long term reoccurring problems.

Not only does the public perception of metabolic health require reconstruction, so does the support during recovery and injury. Let’s discuss the metabolic aspect with relation to Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs). Ibuprofen, Advil, Motrin, Aspirin, or Naproxen are commonly used NSAIDs for reduction of inflammation after a sports injury. These medications are available over-the-counter at most stores, even convenience stores. The universal availability and popularity of these medications has resulted in their wide spread use in sports injuries. There are two primary issues with use of NSAIDs during the recovery from sports injury.

1. NSAIDs are detoxified using sulfation pathways in the body, which decreases sulfates needed in the repair and recovery of joints.
2. NSAIDs decrease GAGs synthesis.

Aside from the potential to slow recovery, they also come with some side effects that can further complicate athletic performance. First, they decrease the ability of the body to protect the lining of the stomach. This may result in bleeding in the digestive tract, inappropriate digestion, or other stress on the digestive tract which may alter the ability to absorb nutrients efficiently. Ultimately, this may have an impact on the response rate of certain muscle groups. Second, most NSAIDs increase the risk for heart attacks and stroke. The impact of these medications on athletes during training may put them at risk for sudden death during training.

Sports Injury Services For Metabolic Support

• Review of your most recent lab work (blood) will determine if up to date tests are needed or if additional tests that have not been ordered would benefit your recovery.
• Full review of organ systems of your body. Detailed questionnaires allow us to identify organ systems which may need specific nutritional support.
  
• Functional Lab Analysis of your blood test results will help determine areas in which your body is stressed and can use support. Simply put, lab ranges identify disease or pathology and often times to don’t allow for identification of stress on the body. Functional lab ranges allow us to see patterns that affect healthy people and athletes that are not disease or pathology.
  
• Identify which vitamins and nutrients would benefit the recovery from sports injuries and set the stage for prevention of injuries.
• Recommendations for dietary changes that will support the specific area of injury. Often times foods that we eat will create stress in certain parts of our bodies. After a history of injuries (both past and present), patterns related to certain foods in your diet can be identified and recommendations for alternate foods can be suggested.

Management of all stress: physical, emotional, chemical, or thermal is essential for supporting your body during recovery from an injury. Suboptimal fuel to the nervous system is one of the biggest stressors on the body over which we have control. There are two primary fuels for the nervous system: Glucose and Oxygen. Your glucose or blood sugar should be stabilized during training and during recovery from an injury. This takes a substantial amount of stress off of the body. That means don’t skip meals, and do not eat processed carbs or junk food if you are serious about recovering faster. Not only does alterations in glucose availability stress your body, but glucose is needed for GAG production. GAGs are needed to repair joints. As you breath, your body carries the oxygen from the air to every part of your body. The brain and nervous system require a substantial portion of the oxygen you breath in. Smoking, vaping, or anemia patterns in your lab work will decrease your body’s ability to supply oxygen efficiently. This is also extremely stressful on your body and will have the same impact on your body as alterations in blood sugar. To learn more watch my video on Energy Production here.

Dr. Robles has years of experience interpreting lab work for both athletes and patients with complicated chronic health problems. The use of functional lab ranges helps with identification of subtle problems that tend to affect seemingly healthy people, especially athletes. In most cases correction of this dysfunction before it results in more severe symptom will also help with injury and injury prevention. Management of the metabolic component of your health is vital to healing. If you have injured a joint or any part of your body. Supporting the metabolic processes that promote body repair is the first step. This should involve blood work to see where long standing problems may be negatively affecting your health. This can be ordered through my office or through another primary care doctor. However, if your doctor is not trained in evaluating lab work for functional deficiencies on lab work, I would recommend working with my office directly even though our lab tests may not be covered by your insurance. This prevents potential problems with tests that were not ordered and allows for more efficient reception of results.

Keep in mind that Metabolic Support does not require physical examination and is available to patients outside of the southern California area.

Fees For Services Provided

• Sports Injury Metabolic Evaluation: $125
• Sports Injury Metabolic Support (15-30 minutes): $75.00
• Sports Injury Support (30-60 minutes): $150.00

Sports Injury Office Hours

Monday: 3:30PM – 5:30PM
Wednesday: 3:30PM – 5:30PM
Friday: 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Services provided by appointment only. Walk-Ins are booked for a later date. Please call with any questions regarding time, services, or fee schedule. Insurance is not accepted by this office for these services, however, you may submit your receipt for any reimbursements directly to your insurer according to your policy.