well according to the Centers for
Disease Control in 2016 there were about
115 opioid overdose deaths every single
day but a florida doctor is trying to
fight the crisis right here on the home
front so we have dr. Tyrell newton
medical director of total pain relief
here to tell us about a treatment that
could be used as an alternative to
opioids good morning to you we have
spent so much time at this TV station
talking about the opioid crisis it
really is a terrible thing going on in
our country and all across the world and
you have alternatives that do not
involve opioids yes so currently there's
about 40,000 to 50,000 deaths a year in
the whole United States Florida has
about 30 about 3,000 deaths per year and
specifically Duval County about 700
deaths per year and Floridians are 15 to
20 times more likely to die of opioid
overdose compared to the general
population Wow I mean that's a startling
statistic there so there's a lot of
people that are dealing with pain they
think that the only thing that can treat
them is an opioid what are the
alternatives so we start with doing a
consultation they're in the office and
we give recommendations for physical
therapy different type of non-surgical
injection treatments and different
holistic medications if the patient
needs a referral to another specialist
or a surgical referral and they've
completed all the conservative
treatments then we'll refer them out try
to get them the appropriate surgery do
whatever we can to help them avoid long
term opiates and narcotics right so you
want to start small something simple
like physical therapy right you want to
start with the least invasive treatments
and kind of gradually go to more potent
treatments treatments that may be a
little bit more aggressive but try to
get those treatments early before the
patient is on long-term opiates and
narcotics okay so there is a thing
called platelet-rich plasma you offer
that how does that work so platelet-rich
plasma is one of those types of holistic
treatments that uses the patient's own
growth factors to heal tissue and the
way it impacts pain is that when pain is
related to an injury to a tendon
lady Middleton cartilage we can stop
that pain by repairing that tissue and
the pain goes away mm-hmm now where does
this come from I mean how does it work
so it's a process that starts with
taking a small sample of the patients
blood we concentrate the growth factors
with the centrifuge
and once we have those concentrated
growth factors we inject those into the
area that's injured and that stimulates
the healing process how big of a change
have you been able to see in your
patients it's been very dramatic when we
have a patient selection for let's say a
partial tear of a tendon in general we
get about a 70% success rate with
success being zero pain or minimal pain
up to about two out of ten mm-hmm
now what are how long does this take how
much does it cost what are the details
there right so it is covered by a lot of
injury insurances so if a patient had an
injury from a car accident or a slip and
fall injury that's generally covered by
the insurance
many of the workman's comp insurance is
covered as well the process takes about
30 minutes
okay the patient goes home the same day
it's done they're in the office there's
minimal recovery time is it painful the
pain from the injection is usually about
a 5 out of 10 or 6 out of 10 it depends
on the patient but we do give novocaine
before the injection okay and then do
they come back for multiple treatments
or most patients do very well with just
one treatment and the healing process
takes a few weeks some patients may need
to come back for a second treatment okay
so you've got offices here in
Jacksonville as well as you Orlando area
yes so we have the main offices there in
Bay Meadows is down the street from the
celebration Church patients will come in
where we have a small staff of five
there and we do different tours through
the office and talk about the other
services as well okay all right dr.
Newton I appreciate it thank you so much
for coming on appreciate it and good
luck making sure that all those patients
are pain-free so I think we know that
there's a lot of people out there
dealing with some injuries and we hope
that they find their relief for more
information on pain management
treatments go to PRP Fla dot-com