Pick Up The PACE Of Healing

JORDAN PYSZ / iFoundMyDoctor.com
A torn left rotator cuff forced Greg out of work for a few weeks, but this 65-year-old roofer is back on the job and feeling better than ever after PACE therapy.

A recent online ranking of worst jobs listed roofer fourth ahead of only lumberjack, ironworker and roustabout. But 44-year roofer Greg Leverance says his profession is nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be.

“It’s a job that’s as hard as you want to make it and as easy as you want to make it,” Greg says. “There’s an easy way to do difficult things, and what I’ve learned over the years is that it’s better to have a strong mind and a weak back than to have a weak mind and a strong back.”

Greg, 65, is fortunate that he has a strong mind and a strong back. His right knee is a different story. Greg tore that joint apart in what he describes as “a bicycle accident” when he was 16, and it’s been giving him fits ever since.

Then there’s his left shoulder, which became a problem in January. It turns out that, for Greg at least, putting away Christmas decorations is more dangerous than roofing.

“All I was doing was pulling this bin full of decorations across the floor, but I did something wrong because all of a sudden I felt this super sharp pain in that shoulder, and the next thing I know, I was picking myself up off the floor,” Greg remembers.

“The last time I experienced that type of pain was when I broke my collarbone on the other side, so when I got up and felt that same pain in my left shoulder, I honestly thought, OK, I just broke my collarbone.”

Except this time Greg did not break his collarbone. While visiting the orthopedist who treats his knee, Greg learned he had a slight tear of the left rotator cuff.

But it didn’t feel like a slight tear. The shoulder pain was so great that Greg could not lift his left arm above his waist or away from his body. And while he was told he could avoid surgery, healing would require weeks of rest and rehabilitation.

“The problem with that is, I’ve got bills to pay,” Greg says. “So, I started asking around about what else I could do, and that’s s when a friend of mine started telling me about Dr. Richardson. After that conversation, I decided to go see Dr. Richardson.”

An “Amazing Tool”

Mel Richardson, MD, is the founder of ReGenRX Wellness, a Vero Beach-based practice where he offers a variety of pain management and lifestyle optimization treatments, including bioidentical hormone therapy, weight management, age management and infusion therapy.

Dr. Richardson also offers regenerative medicine treatments for osteoarthritis, soft tissue tears and musculoskeletal injuries and specializes in an advanced shockwave therapy for pain featuring SANUWAVE® Pulsed Acoustic Cellular Expression (PACE®).

The most advanced form of extracorporeal shockwave technology, or ESWT, PACE therapy is a nonsurgical, drug-free pain management treatment that uses high-energy acoustic pressure waves to initiate healing and regenerate damaged tissue.

PACE treatments are covered by insurance and, as Dr. Richardson explained to Greg, they can be used to regenerate not just soft tissue (skin and muscles), but also semisoft tissue (tendons and ligaments) and hard tissue (bone).

A typical course calls for patients to be treated once a week for three weeks.

“When acoustic waves penetrate injured tissue, they trick the cells into releasing anti-inflammatory chemicals and proteins that the body produces naturally,” according to Dr. Richardson. “These chemicals decrease inflammation, which relieves pain.
-Dr. Richardson

“At the same time, the sound waves attract stem cells from around the body to the injured area. Over time — usually between six and 12 weeks — those stem cells heal and regenerate the damaged tissue. But pain is typically relieved much sooner.

“That is why, from head to toe, I consider PACE therapy to be the most amazing tool I’ve ever seen in medicine. And I’ve been involved in pain management for almost 40 years. There really is nothing else like it.”

Passing the Test

Greg quickly accepted Dr. Richardson’s recommendation to undergo PACE therapy to treat his damaged left shoulder. He received his initial treatment the day of his first appointment.

Three days later, after spending the previous two weeks with his left arm in a sling, Greg ditched the sling and put his first PACE treatment to the test.

“I tend to do stupid things sometimes, things the doctor wouldn’t necessarily want me to do,” Greg says. “So I tried moving my arm, and right away, I could see that my range of motion with that arm was better and that I had less pain.”

“That made me feel very confident about what the doctor was doing, and it just kept getting better after that. By the time I went in for my second treatment, I was able to lift my arm up for the doctor, and I went through the entire treatment without any pain.”

After receiving his third PACE therapy treatment, Greg was granted permission to begin light rehabilitation using resistance bands. He started those exercises a week later and is now pulling with more force and without any discomfort.

“I can literally roll my shoulder in any direction I want now, whether it’s reaching across my body, reaching over my head or reaching behind my back,” Greg raves. “I couldn’t do things like that even before the accident happened, so the PACE therapy has helped me tremendously.”

Greg’s knee is feeling better, too, and he attributes that to Dr. Richardson noticing some swelling in the joint and offering to treat it with PACE therapy.

“That knee has just gotten worse and worse over the years, and it was to the point where every three months or so I was having to go to the orthopedist to get fluid drained out of it and get a shot of cortisone in it,” Greg says.

“I was actually starting to look for some alternative treatment, but on the day that I went in for the third treatment on my shoulder, Dr. Richardson saw my knee and suggested that he remove the fluid and do the PACE treatment on it.

“Since then, he has done two more treatments on my knee, and now I can bend that knee more than I ever could before. I’ve got more motion in my knee and less pain, so I am extremely happy with Dr. Richardson and the results of the work he’s done.

“I’m so pleased that I’ve already sent (one of my co-workers) to him, and if anybody else comes and asks, I’ll tell them all about what that man has done for me because I ask for blessings for that man every day.”