No pain, no gain may be one of the oldest saying in sports, meaning athletes for the longest time have been challenged by coping with that pain.
Pain management is essential for everybody from athletes seeking to keep going to regular folk trying to deal with day-to-day living.
Mark Starr, MD (H), has studied and pioneered some of the most efficacious pain management techniques. This means better outcomes for athletes who can get beyond the pain and into better gain and people trying to maintain healthy lifestyles going forward.
Already well known for his work fighting thyroid disease — he followed in Dr. Broda Barnes’ footsteps — Dr. Starr has taken his homeopathic physician’s practice into a new Paradise Valley, Az. office called 21st Century Pain and Sports Medicine. His practice specializes in natural hormone therapy and pain management.
“Medicine should not be based primarily on chemistry,” Dr. Starr said. “Every organ, every cell, every toxin vibrates at its own frequency. The body is an energetic being. Recognizing that, we can get to the root of many problems and restore health.”
Dr. Starr is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pain Medicine. He is licensed by the Arizona State Board of Homeopathic and Integrated Medicine Examiners. Another claim to fame is his direct study with President John F. Kennedy’s famed pain specialist, Dr. Hans Kraus and with Dr. Lawrence S. Sonkin, renowned endocrinologists at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
How it works
Using non-invasive healing techniques to master pain, Dr. Starr has developed a dedicated following among those with sports injuries. He has performed thousands of injections into injured muscles and ligaments along with extensive physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Treatment follows the tenets of Dr. Kraus, known as the progenitor of sports medicine in America, a rock climbing pioneer who was an orthopedic fracture surgeon specializing in muscle pain, sports injuries, physical medicine and rehab.
Dr. Kraus treated more than 10,000 patients including President Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Johnny Unitas and Katherine Hepburn. Olympic medal-winning skier Billy Kidd credited Kraus’ help in winning the world championship.
Professional baseball player Mitch Arnold credits Dr. Starr with helping him revive his career after three years of UCL reconstruction surgeries, also known as Tommy John surgery, and labrum re-attachment shoulder surgery.
“After going through nearly four years of physical rehabilitation at the top facilities in Phoenix, I still couldn’t throw on consecutive days nor throw at the speeds to which I became accustomed,” Arnold said. “Eventually, the pain caused a premature retirement from baseball at the age of 27.
“By happenstance, I was introduced to Dr. Starr and after thorough discussions with him I decided to give his methods a try,” Arnold said. “At his urging, I had my amalgams removed, started a proper thyroid regime and, most importantly, had trigger point injections therapy.
“Within weeks,” Arnold continued, “not years, I was throwing pain-free and without the need to find an arm action that wouldn’t hurt that day. In 2010, I completed my first year since playing professionally in 2002 of professional baseball without missing a day due to injury.”
People don’t have to be professional athletes to experience pain curtailing athletic endeavors and seek treatment.
Ryan Turnock, 45, said he decided “to try and re-live my youth by participating in an adult recreation kickball league in 2010.” He hadn’t played competitive sports since his early 30s due to a nagging hamstring injury from high school football.
Turnock seriously re-injured his hamstring in the kickball game. Dr. Starr consulted and helped him with trigger point injections and therapy to rebuild leg muscle. After a half-dozen sessions, treatment and therapy, including electric therapy, light stretching and exercise, “my leg felt better than it ever has,” Turnock said, “and to this day I still have not had any issues.”
Turnock added: “I will always be thankful for the treatment that Dr. Starr gave me. It’s nice to be able to hike and light jog without fear of injury.”
Treating trigger points
Trigger points are hyper-irritable spots located in a taut band of skeletal muscle. They are painful and may cause pain to radiate elsewhere.
Trigger point injections offer great relief from pain and allow the vast majority of people to avoid orthopedic surgeries, particularly when coupled with proper thyroid treatment. They are useful for many different types of musculoskeletal pain including arthritic joints, back pain, neck pain, fibromyalgia, sports injuries, unresolved whiplash injuries, chronic tendonitis, and partially torn ligaments.
Dr. Starr’s clinic offers the latest technology in laser therapy to treat sports injuries, arthritis, and a wide variety of musculoskeletal pathologies.
Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Albert Einstein first theorized that light was made from a stream of little packets of energy called photons. When light interacts with skin, photons stimulate cellular regeneration. Infrared light penetrates more deeply than other parts of the light spectrum.
This kind of therapy is used for healing because it can:
- Raise white blood cell count
- Improve cellular growth
- Prompt DNA or protein synthesis in cells
- Produce relief of muscular pain and spasm
- Stimulate blood flow and circulation
- Increase metabolism
Exposure to red light naturally stimulates skin cells to produce collagen, elastin, and enzymes that provide support for the skin.
Laser light is “coherent” light meaning it is very orderly, not random, and is used for healing. A higher percentage of non-coherent light is either reflected or absorbed by the skin. Every cell membrane has receptors able to read different frequencies of energy contained in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Infrared, red, and low intensity lasers put energy into the body. They help the body heal naturally. They are particularly good for sports medicine. They are complementary to the program’s Tennant Biomodulator, which works with voltage.
The BioFlex Professional Laser used by Dr. Starr is the most advanced laser therapy system available, designed as a non-invasive, non-toxic therapy for a wide variety of medical conditions. It has been approved by the FDA, Health Canada, and EU.
Meditech International Inc. offers the most advanced and comprehensive Low Intensity Laser Therapy System for the treatment of sports injuries, arthritis and a wide variety of musculoskeletal pathologies.
Dr. Starr also realizes that many lingering injuries are due to hormone imbalances and environmental illnesses and treats these accordingly.
More about Dr. Starr
The good doctor has been in private practice since 1996, opening his first pain clinic in Columbia, MO, where he spent five years. He then moved his practice to Marietta, GA for the next seven years. In 2008, he opened a new homeopathic pain and sports medicine clinic in Paradise Valley, AZ.
Dr. Starr published the widely acclaimed “Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic.” in 2005. He often is asked to speak internationally regarding his book, now in its third print.
Dr. Starr’s progressive approach to alternative medicine offers cutting-edge therapies designed to accelerate the healing of hypothyroidism, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, Candidiasis, arthritis, sprains, strains, and fractures.
Education and training include:
- 1995-1996 – New York Pain Treatment Program, Lenox Hill Hospital
- 1994-1995 – Attending physician, Bronx Veterans Hospital
- 1991-1994 – Residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Missouri, Rusk Rehabilitation Center
- 1987-1990 – MD from University of Missouri, Columbia Medical School
Dr. Starr has been trained by many experts including:
- Andrew Fischer, MD, PhD
- Hans Kraus, MD
- Norman Marcus, MD
- William Rea, MD
- Gerald Smith, DDS
- Lawrence Sonkin, MD, PhD
- Jerry Tennant, MD
Sports injury appointments
Plan to be in the office for three hours for an initial appointment. All patients must be seen in person for their initial visit.
For sports injuries and athletes, Dr. Starr offers a number of different protocols and packages. This means Hans Kraus’ exercises and therapeutic approaches, including immediate mobilization of sprains, strains, and some fractures.
Trigger point injections into muscles and ligaments, followed by electric stimulation, gentle exercises, laser treatments (Meditech-Bioflex lasers), and the Tennant Biomodulator often result in rapid resolution in one week to two months of both acute and chronic injuries.
The costs of these treatments depend on the severity and chronicity of the problem. The payment, with possible room for payment plans, will be discussed after the initial evaluation.
Dr. Starr must see the patient to evaluate the extent of required treatments. Patients should not expect to fly in one day for a chronic pain problem and leave the next day feeling relieved. A growing number of athletes require several months of thyroid therapy prior to beginning protocols to resolve chronic injuries.
For more information about sports pain treatments, thyroid treatments and other 21st Century Pain and Sports Medicine programs, visit http://www.21centurymed.com. The office is at 10565 N. Tatum Blvd. Suite B-115, Paradise Valley, AZ. The office may be reached by phone at (480) 607-6503.
