Scott Webb (Host): The field of sports medicine has grown exponentially over the past few years and more and more athletes and weekend warriors are seeking the advice and treatment from experts like my guest today. And I'm joined today by Dr. Sonny Hodge. He's a Sports Medicine Primary Physician with Gulf Orthopedics Sports Medicine.

 Welcome to LifeCast, the podcast from Infirmary Health. I'm Scott Webb. So, Dr. Hodge, so nice to have you here today. I was mentioning that I have a couple of kids and they played sports and had lots of injuries, but I'm certainly not the expert that you are. So, it's great to have you here today. Let's just start there, you know, sports medicine, I think it's become so common and everybody kind of knows what it is, but you're the expert in the podcast, if you will.

So, what exactly is sports medicine?

Gary "Sonny" Hodge, II M.D.: Yeah, so sports medicine and the medical community aims to enhance performance. It's treatment of acute injuries in the athlete, whether that athlete be youth or high school, collegiate, even weekend warriors. Also aims in the treatment of that and then once that injury is identified and preventing future injuries in that athlete.

Host: Yeah, we think about sort of the acute injuries and chronic and injury prevention, performance enhancement. We're going to kind of circle back to that, but let's talk more specifically about, you know, who ends up in your office? Who's the typical person sitting there, maybe their parents are sitting next to them, and what are the most common injuries really you see? Is it knee, leg, back, shoulder, hand, you know, sort of all the above?

Gary "Sonny" Hodge, II M.D.: Yeah, really if any joint or tendon or muscle in the human body is prone to injury, whether that be an acute injury or chronic overuse injury; in regards to who ends up in the office; that can range from as young as 7, or even younger, depending on level of activity, to as old as 80s to 90s, uh, depending on that level of activity.

And, different pathologies, different injuries are going to occur within different age groups. Obviously, as we get older, it's going to be more of that chronic overuse injury, that finally shows up after years of being active. And then when we're younger, we're more liable to experience the more acute injuries involving tendons and ligaments and those issues.

Host: Yeah, I was just thinking as you were saying there, age 7 all the way up to 80s and 90s, so the 7 year old might have been from flipping off their bicycle, whereas the 80 or 90 year old, you know, might have osteoporosis and might have suffered a fall, something like that. So, as you say, acute injuries, chronic pain, those types of things. I want to give you a chance to talk more about Gulf Orthopedic Sports Medicine and the type of work that you guys do there, the multidisciplinary approach. Share that with listeners. What can they expect when they walk through the door?

Gary "Sonny" Hodge, II M.D.: So Gulf Orthopedics is a multidisciplinary approach to orthopedic care, both involving sports medicine and general orthopedic care, as well as traumatic orthopedic care. We're a group of both surgeons and non-surgeons alike. We have joint replacement surgeons, sports medicine surgeons, spine surgeons. We also have pain management physicians who deal primarily with treatment involving chronic cervical and lumbar back pain and treating the pain associated with those usually degenerative type pathologies with treatment modalities, including nerve blocks and other procedures that they perform. In the world of primary care, non-operative sports medicine, we see athletes of all ages, as mentioned earlier, and that's usually identifying the source of the pain and trying to figure out what is causing that pain for that particular individual. And then once it's identified whether that can be in the office or needs further imaging with MRI, to look at tendon structure or ligament structure; then we come up with a game plan about how do we treat this to get that person back to doing what they like to do and back to doing what they like to do in a pain free manner. That's the ultimate goal of every physician here, when we're seeing the patient. It's, it's about treating the pain source that's causing the issue that's not allowing that person to do whatever it is that they want to do.

Host: I think that many of us when we think about orthopedics, when we think about sports injuries, we just sort of automatically assume that it's going to be some you know, devastating thing. It's going to require surgery and rehab and all of that, but I often think about folks like yourself, doctors like yourself as sort of like mechanics, right? We don't start by just replacing the engine of a car. You start small and you work your way towards where ultimately surgery may be the, you know, the last best resort, but it's usually a process, right?

Gary "Sonny" Hodge, II M.D.: I would say so, absolutely. Most orthopedic injuries don't end up ultimately requiring surgery. Now, of course, traumatic injuries that involve significantly displaced fractures, those would require surgery and that's for ultimate alignment, regaining a function for that particular patient. Injuries involving ligaments and tendons that have torn and are partially torn, those end up usually requiring surgery. Because tendon for the most part and ligaments for the most part don't regrow themselves. So those usually end up requiring, but most things are chronic, kind of a wear, tear, even the overuse, even in our younger athletes can be more of an overuse and so it's in those situations, there's not always necessarily a perfect surgery that needs to take place at that moment in time for that particular patient. So that's where non-operative care can usually provide great benefit, and that's walking with the patient, helping them understand what it is they have, helping them understand probably why it developed, usually being an overuse injury; and then helping them understand the treatment modalities needed, which usually require physical therapy. Sometimes injections help, and that helps in the acute phase to help out with the pain so that they can do the physical therapy. And then it's guidance on future activity, levels in play. I think about baseball athletes, being a previous baseball player.

 We see that as one of the higher incidences of happening now of with year round baseball and year round throwing, particularly in our pitchers. Studies have shown that pitchers really need to be resting their arm three to four months out of the year. And that means nothing. That means no throwing at all. And so what we're starting to see is these kids are getting bigger and stronger at younger ages and their bodies aren't ready to handle the velocity that's being provided. And so they're injuring their elbows because of throwing too much, essentially. And so it's counseling on that. It really is becoming a primary care physician for the athlete.

In many ways as a primary care physician would counsel on smoking cessation, and diet control for cardiovascular issues and diabetes. And my role as a primary care sports medicine, it's about counseling on how best to live your life in a healthy way so that you can continue to do all these things that are keeping you healthy, so you're not injuring yourself.

Host: Yeah. It's so interesting. We could probably do a separate podcast on just how sports has changed. I'm sure there's a connection there. I'm sure there's lots of evidence and research to support that, that just doing something year round, especially throwing, especially for those younger kids, the stress that puts on all the parts that it takes to throw a baseball, it adds up and it wears them down probably. Right?

Gary "Sonny" Hodge, II M.D.: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's ultimately what we're getting at here is in many ways, it's such as we would say to the weekend warrior, don't do just one thing. Don't just be a runner. Don't just be a biker. We would say that to our young athletes of don't just be a baseball player. Don't just be a basketball player.

 What ends up happening is the body gets used to doing the same movements over and over and over. And it's the same body parts that get wore out during that time and during the course of competitive and both recreational play. And so then those body parts end up being injured at a faster rate. So cross training, that's what we call it.

 When we're speaking to our weekend warriors about, or our, just our normal individual that's working out, it's about cross training. It's about doing multiple things to create balance within the body and to create balance both within the different muscular, within the systems, both from a power and endurance standpoint. And strength standpoint. And so in the same way that you would cross train in that manner, you would want to cross train, so to speak, in your different sports and surprisingly, we see this often, you end up developing and getting better and that ends up helping you out. And what might be your favorite sport just by participating in different and other sports.

And it's been studied and looked at that most of the professional athletes were multi sport athletes in high school. Nobody was a single individual athlete. So I think it's just stressing that, stay involved in multiple things. And again, that comes back down to that counseling.

Host: Yeah, it does. And that's just a great advice from an expert today, a sports medicine physician. And I'm so glad we did this. I told you before we got started that I have a vested interest, of course, because, you know, I played sports and I love sports, but I have two kiddos that play sports so whether it's the acute injuries or the chronic things that I suffer from, or the other types of things that you do, you say the counseling there about you know, preventing injury and enhancing performance. And in this case, we're talking about a little bit of cross training or playing some other sports might actually help young athletes with the thing that is their favorite sport. So, all good stuff today. Just want to say, thanks for your time and you stay well.

Gary "Sonny" Hodge, II M.D.: Alright, thanks, Scott.

Host: Golf Orthopedics Sports Medicine specialists provide exceptional patient care to treat sports injuries. The team at Golf Orthopedics are experts at using the most cutting edge surgical and non-surgical techniques to treat common sports injuries through ligament reconstruction, tendon repair, and cartilage restoration.

Learn more about the physician team and services offered at golfortho. com.

And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share on social media and subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcast apps. This is LifeCast, the podcast from Infirmary Health. I'm Scott Webb. Thanks for listening. Stay well.