December 11, 2024 • 24 mins
Gayan Poovendran from the PRO Institute is here to change how you think about healing orthopedic injuries. Say goodbye to the idea that surgery is your only option. Gayan introduces us to regenerative medicine, exploring groundbreaking treatments like stem cells and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections that tap into your body's own healing powers. These innovative methods promise not just to treat the symptoms but to truly heal issues such as meniscus tears and rotator cuff injuries. Get ready to discover a world where your body’s natural abilities are the star, shaking up the traditional medical scene with less invasive, more effective alternatives.
But that's not all—Gayan takes us through his personal journey of breaking free from the confines of working for others to building a private practice in sports medicine. With the unwavering support of his wife, Gayan faced the unique challenges of running a business with a spouse, sharing insights on the blend of professional and personal life. Experience the highs and lows, from the grueling demands of medical school to the exhilarating yet daunting task of establishing his practice. This episode is packed with stories of resilience and personal growth, offering listeners a peek into the power of overcoming adversity both in medicine and life.
Call: (305) 209-1951
Visit: https://www.pro-institute.com/
Follow: https://www.instagram.com/PRO_InstituteMD/
Like: https://www.facebook.com/PROInstituteMD/?_rdr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Oh, hello everyone and welcome back.
I was recently at the Chamberof Commerce luncheon and I met
our next guest.
Actually, I didn't meet him,but I met his lovely wife.
He had to step out a little bitearly, but, as you guys know,
anytime I encounter a newbusiness through the chamber, I
always like to extend an olivebranch and invite them on the
show to learn a little bit moreabout what they do and how they
(00:35):
help our wonderful community.
So today our guest is GayanPuventron, and Gayan joins us
from Pro Institute.
Gayan, welcome to the show,brother.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you so much.
I really am honored to be here.
This is really cool andexciting for me.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, happy to have you, man, and thanks, as always,
to our listeners for tuning into learn more about our great
community and the businessesthat serve us.
So, without further ado, whydon't you tell everyone a little
bit about what you guys do atPRO Institute?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
So we are a regenerative orthopedic and
sports medicine practice.
So PRO stands for PuventrinRegenerative Orthopedic
Institute, and so I brought myexperience from the general
medicine or allopathic normal MDschool to a more alternative,
natural healing approach tohealing orthopedic injuries.
(01:27):
So we utilize a lot of thingslike peptides, prp, which is
called platelet-rich plasma.
We use stem cells, not the onesyou get from the bottle but the
ones from your own body.
We do different nutrient IVs,we do ozone therapy, we do some
like nutrient testing.
There's a whole bunch ofdifferent things that we do to
try to optimize the body fromthe inside to help it heal
(01:49):
better.
And then sometimes I have to doinjections as well.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I've been doing a lot of podcasts lately with.
I just did one with mypodiatrist the other day and we
were talking about this wholeidea of regenerative medicine,
and I've done a lot with variousbusinesses that are in like the
holistic healing space andthere's been this common theme
and I think it's happeningbecause as I get older I'm more
(02:15):
attuned to this, I'm more awareof the body's ability to heal
itself.
So I'm really fascinated by theapproach to this holistic
regenerative medicine.
Can you speak a little bit?
You just mentioned some of thevarious services that you offer.
Can you speak a little bit moreabout this distinction between
traditional medicine, sportsmedicine specifically, and this
(02:36):
idea of regenerative medicineand kind of healing from within?
Like for somebody that hasn'theard about that or has heard
regenerative medicine butdoesn't really know what it is?
Go down that rabbit hole alittle bit.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Sure Be happy to.
So you know the um, my, myresidency and my, my fellowship
were in sports medicine as anon-operative doctor, and so
typically, or traditionally, ifyou were to come and see me in
that type of office I wasworking in an orthopedic office
I would evaluate you.
I would say oh, you have a kneeinjury, maybe a meniscus tear,
(03:10):
let's do some physical therapy.
Maybe let's do a cortisoneinjection, do some medications,
try to manage the symptoms.
If it doesn't get better, go tosurgery.
Right, that's what ends uphappening with a lot of patients
.
So I got really frustrated withyou.
Know, I feel like I have reallygood skills with my hands and I
wasn't getting to use them verymuch.
So with regenerative medicine,what we do is we harness your
(03:32):
body's own ability to healitself because, just like when
you cut yourself on the arm, youknow your body is going to heal
it.
So what we do is we'll takeeither stem cells or PRP, inject
it into whatever is injured andthen that stimulates it to heal
and make it feel better.
That works.
On meniscus tears, rotator cufftears, labral tears, arthritis
(03:52):
of the knee, arthritis of thehip, anything that really can
cause a lot of aches and painswe're able to help heal those,
not just by masking it.
You know, like a cortisoneinjection we talk about to
decrease pain it just masks thesymptoms and in the end we know
that it makes things a lot worse, whereas these injections or
these treatments actually helproll the clock back so that
(04:15):
we're not having the cause ofthe pain anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It seems like a no brainer to me to at least
attempt to heal the body throughthis idea of regenerative
medicine, as opposed to justgoing straight to the more
invasive types types ofprocedures.
Now, do you also I'd imaginethat you also do the surgery
aspects of it Like, do you do?
Do you run the full gamut, oryou just specifically focus on
the regenerative side and if itcan't be, the issue can't be
(04:41):
addressed through that you referthem out to like a surgeon if
they ultimately need surgery.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I my.
My treatments stop when theinjections or the needle based
therapies don't work anymore.
So if somebody needs to have asurgery to fix whatever, then
I'll refer out.
Surgery is sometimes the answer.
Sometimes patients do come tosee me and they're too far gone
I can't help it.
But there are so many patientsthat I see that you know they
(05:10):
have a partial rotator cuff tearthat their surgeon says oh, you
did six weeks of physicaltherapy, let's operate on it.
They don't want to.
I fix them.
And then they have to go backto the surgeon and say, hey, I
guess I don't need the surgeryanymore.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Are you finding that through these non-invasive
regenerative approaches you'regetting a very, very high level
of success with patients, or isthis something that works for
some period of time and thenoften needs to go?
I guess it just depends on thecase.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
right Depends on the individual, but it depends on
the case, it depends on theindividual and it also just
depends on what's going on Right.
So the again, the main focus ofthese treatments is to heal the
injury.
So people always ask me is thispermanent?
Well, it's as permanent as asurgery is going to be.
It's as permanent as your body,your body or the biology is
(06:02):
going to allow it to be.
So, like again a rotator cufftear in the shoulder, we can
heal that and it's not going totear again until 10, 15, 20
years down the road when it'sgoing to naturally wear down and
degrade.
Arthritis, which is adegenerative condition, tends to
be a little bit different.
That one requires a lot moremaintenance tends to be a little
(06:26):
bit different.
That one requires a lot moremaintenance.
You know we do those injectionsmaybe once a year, once every
18 months, just to keep thingsas healthy as possible on the
inside.
But it's not like a again, it'snot a temporary fix where you
know we're just masking it for acouple months and moving
forward.
I mean, I do agree it's kind ofa no-brainer for a lot of these
conditions that I see and treatthat people try this.
(06:49):
I've had pretty good results.
I've been doing this for 12years now.
I believe.
I think that part of my successends up really being because of
patient selection.
I am very selective on who Ithink this stuff will work on
and I use a lot of the evidencefrom the conferences I go to and
I teach at.
But you know, when we get 70 to80 to 90 percent success rates,
(07:12):
I mean I get to be prettybullish on how well these things
work earlier that you werefrustrated by kind of like the
old school way of going aboutthis.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
What ultimately seeded that frustration, and
does this go back to beforemedical school that you've
always had this kind of likeholistic approach to medicine?
Talk a little bit about how youkind of evolved into this
specific field of regenerativemedicine.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So I think with most things that people are
passionate about, there's apersonal story involved, and for
me it is the same thing.
When I was a junior in college,I hurt my shoulder lifting
weights.
I partially dislocated it,point where it's bad.
(08:09):
He had me see two of our familyfriends who are orthopedic
surgeons and their solution tome was well, we can operate on
this, but you're better off notand just dealing with it and
great advice right it was likethey're like oh, if it the same
doctor device, like, if it hurts, don't do it.
I'm like you know what?
I'm 20 years old.
I want to lift weights, I wantto play basketball, I want to
play golf, I want to play.
There's all these things I wantto do.
(08:30):
I can't not do them at 20 yearsold because my shoulder hurts.
So my dad and I, you know, goton this regimen of he had me do
physical therapy and then he wasgiving me cortisone injections
and after, you know, the firstcortisone injection probably
lasted me nine months a year,give or take, and then probably
(08:51):
lasted me nine months a year,give or take, and then the next
only lasted like three or fouror five months.
And then we did another one andit only lasted like three weeks
.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And I'm just like, and my and I go and ask him
again hey, can I get another one?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
he goes no, you can't do it that many because it's
going to do damage.
So then we go and talk to myfriends, the surgeons, and they
tell me well, we can operate onit now that you've failed the
normal conservative treatment.
Um, but you're going to have tobe in a sling for six weeks or
eight weeks and it's going to beanother three to four, five
months of rehab before theshoulder feels good.
(09:20):
And here I am, a 21 year old atthis point, getting ready to go
to medical school.
I'm like when am I going tofigure this out?
And so from medical school Ijust kept dealing with it.
And then, once I got intoresidency, I was really into
sports medicine.
I've always been into sportsmedicine, but I started like
looking at different ways ofhealing things naturally.
So I started by I don't know,it was like an in flight
(09:43):
magazine where they talked aboutgrowth hormone injections.
Like, oh, maybe if I injectedgrowth hormone into my shoulder
that would help.
Never ended up going down thatroute because luckily, when I
was in residency there was asports medicine fellowship with
a doctor that was doing some ofthese regenerative things and
he's talked to me about PRP, andso I kind of switched focuses
from again traditionalregenerative medicine or
(10:04):
traditional sports medicinestuff to more the regenerative
side, or that was my passion.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, that's pretty cool how you landed into that.
We're having that specificissue.
And then you were in asituation where you could kind
of test the waters on yourselfto see how things went and kind
of validate what you werelooking for.
Reminds me of a story formyself.
I herniated my L1 S5 lumbar wayback when and I couldn't.
Whatever I did, I got theepidurals.
It worked just like you said.
(10:31):
The first one worked reallywell, the second one not so much
.
The third.
By the time I did it, the thirdthird one didn't have much of an
effect.
I was getting acupuncture, Iwas doing all sorts of things to
avoid getting a microdiscectomy and I was one step
from getting the surgery.
And somebody finallyrecommended to see a
chiropractor to try discdecompression, spinal disc
decompression and I went intothat machine and it took a while
(10:52):
but after going two times aweek for several months finally
got the pressure off the nerveand I was able to get back to
normal and I haven't had anissue really since and that was
all done through.
I guess you could call thatlike regenerative, right, it's
through the body, right.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, it's your body healing itself.
I mean that's.
I think people forget about howimportant the chiropractor or
the physical therapist can be.
You know they're going tobecause a condition like yours
that you're talking about partof it is, you know the alignment
is off right.
So you correct the alignment onthe top, like I can put a new
tire on, but if your alignmentis still bad, the tire is going
(11:30):
to go bad again, whereas thechiropractor, the physical
therapist, they're going toadjust all of those motions and
the way that your muscles fire,so that way it doesn't keep
bothering it and thedecompression obviously helps
but getting those muscles.
I'm sure that did some otherwork to get the muscles stronger
along your spine, whichultimately is what gave you the
long lasting relief.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, your spine, which ultimately, is what gave
you the long lasting relief.
Yeah, your, so I met at thechamber again.
I alluded to at the front ofthe show.
I didn't meet you personally.
I met.
I met your wife.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
She also works with you at the practice.
She is the practice, she's theboss, she's the practice manager
, she's the one that tells mewhat to do, when to do it, how
high to jump.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
So how did you meet her through the field?
Tell us a little bit about howyou guys linked up and how you
ended up working together andstarting this practice together.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So we actually met a long time ago when we were in
college.
So I met her when she was afreshman in college and I was a
junior or senior, so rightaround the time where I hurt
myself Interesting story mygirlfriend at the time and her
boyfriend at the time werebrother and sister, so the four
of us used to spend a lot oftime hanging out.
Nothing ever happened, nothingcrazy like that.
(12:41):
But after I graduated college,you know, we kind of went our
own ways.
I went to medical school.
We would talk once in a while,you know, just friendly medical
school, we would talk once in awhile, you know, just friendly.
And then one day, um, a coupleyears ago, she like sent me one
of those messages on instagram.
I was like, hey, how's it going?
And then we like literally didstop talking.
After that.
I mean, it was like one ofthose like weird, like it was
(13:02):
the right time, now we're gonnareconnect.
So we reconnected.
Uh, she was living in ohio atthe time this was right before
the pandemic so she flew downfor two weeks because it was
just a two week lockdown and sheended up never going back.
And then during that time shesaw me go through two different
sports medicine practices whereI was employed by other people.
(13:24):
She saw the frustration in meon a daily basis of not
necessarily being able to dothings the way I wanted to, or
implementing new therapies whenI think that they're good,
because the business peoplebehind it don't understand it.
She was a little bird in my earthat said you could do this on
(13:45):
your own.
You've been making people a lotof money for the last couple of
years.
Why don't you do it foryourself?
Why don't you do it foryourself?
And finally I said okay, youknow what, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Good stuff.
I always ask this when there'sa husband and wife team what is
one of the most rewarding thingsabout working with your wife?
And, on the other end of thatspectrum, what's one of the
biggest challenges about workingwith your wife and?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
on the other end of that spectrum.
What's one of the biggestchallenges about working with
your wife?
I think most rewarding is Iknow that we're both equally
invested in the success right,Because she wants to see me
succeed financially andemotionally and professionally
and she wants to see me keepgoing and climbing and she's
just as invested in that as I am, which you don't get with just
(14:30):
anybody right.
One of the challenges on theother side of that is-.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Careful Think before you talk, because she's going to
listen to this.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
She's going to listen to this and she'll agree with
me.
The biggest challenge is thebrain never shuts off, right,
because we'll do stuff here atwork and then we're thinking
about stuff at home, and then at10 30 at night in bed I'll be
like hey, wait a minute, whatabout this idea?
And she'll be like really, it's10 30 o'clock at night or the
vice versa.
She'd be like, hey, did youthink about this?
(14:59):
I'm like I really don't want tothink about this right now.
I need to decompress.
That's the hardest part.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
But you know, it's all for the greater good yeah,
yeah right, Separating work frompersonal, just sometimes
knowing when it's right to maybeput that thought down on a
notepad for the next day and notbring it up.
But you get so excited when thethought comes up in your head
You're like I want to share thiswith you right now.
I can see how that could beinteresting.
So do you guys have kids?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
No kids.
We've only been married forwe're going on four years now
but we're working on the kidpart.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Very, very cool.
So what would be looking back?
So what I found through my lifeexperiences is that I'm often
defined by my most challengingexperiences, more so than the
rewards or the triumphs thatI've had.
Right, the good stuff is great,don't get me wrong but the
(15:53):
things that you go through, thatyou really struggle with in
life, that at the time you'regoing through it feels like the
end of the world and it feelslike there's no hope.
But then, retrospectively,looking back at it years later,
you can say, wow, man, I'mreally grateful for having gone
through that experience becauseit really helped shape me into
who I am today.
Is there an experience likethat that comes to mind
throughout your journey,something that you struggled
with, a hardship, a challengethat really helped to define you
(16:16):
into who you are today?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I mean I think right now I'm going through one right
Starting this new business, thatit's only been open for a year.
So I've gone from a very, verystable life where patients were
just showing up at my door andyou know I was getting a nice
paycheck and a nice salary andall that kind of stuff, and now
it's.
You know I.
I know that in the future I'lllook back at this and be like,
(16:40):
of course it was worth it.
And you know, you knew you weregoing to succeed.
But when you're in the weedsit's sometimes challenging.
I've had similar situationslike that, I mean in education,
right here in college I neverthought I was gonna get into
medical school.
And then medical school theyteach you how stupid you are the
entire time.
So you're like I'm never, nevergonna get through this, I'm
(17:01):
gonna just kill everybody.
When I get into residency, andthen residency, they're telling
you don't kill anybody.
And then you know you're, am Iever gonna make it through this
whole treatment thing?
And you know it, it's, it was.
Uh, the the medical educationsystem is very, very challenging
and you never think that you'rereally gonna make make it
through.
And then when you do you like,look back and you kind of miss
(17:22):
it, like there's a lot of stuffthat I remember complaining
about in the moment, like when Iwas in medical school in the
Caribbean.
I'm like man, I hate it here, Idon't want to, like I'm in
paradise and I'm studying.
But then you look back andyou're like man, all my friends
were like two-minute walk awayfrom me and now we're like all
around the country.
So like it's just interestinghow your perspective can change
(17:44):
when you're removed from thetrauma, the direct removal of
trauma.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Indeed indeed, and appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, starting.
I speak to tons of localbusiness owners on the platform
and if you haven't run abusiness or been an entrepreneur
or started something fromscratch, you don't know.
It can be extremely frighteningand a harrowing experience.
(18:09):
Because your specialty lies inmedicine.
Right, you went to medicalschool.
You're a doctor.
Right, you deal withregenerative medicine, but as a
business owner, now you got todeal with it.
It's great that you have yourwife to help you with all this,
but now you've got to wear everysingle hat.
Right, you also got to be aboss.
You've got to be anadministrator.
You've got to do all thesedifferent things and it can be
very, very difficult, but younailed it.
(18:29):
Right, you know that if youjust put in the work now and do
what's required, it'll all payoff in the end, as it always
does.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I'm very lucky that my wife has a much better
business mind because, you'reright, like I spent my entire
time and my entire educationlearning about science and
healing and helping people.
I never learned about thebusiness aspect of it.
I had a really interestingmeeting with a kind of a mentor
the other day and he was tellingme you know what you don't need
to like.
You've gotten to the pointwhere now the regenerative
(19:00):
medicine is second nature.
It's not something you have tothink about, you just know what
to do.
But now you have to go to thenext part of now.
You have to be a business owner.
Now you have to be, as you said, a manager.
Now you have to think aboutmarketing and all these other
things that the entire time ofyour career you're like that's
somebody else's job, now it'smine right.
Now it's mine Right.
But thankfully I have my wifethat can do those things really,
(19:21):
really well, because that washer trade.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, they.
They can often do them a lotbetter than us, can't they?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yep Guilty as charged .
I'm not alone there.
What would be one thing thatyou'd like to leave our
listeners with?
It can be about the business.
It could be about life ingeneral, piece of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
One thing you'd like to drop, one, one nugget.
I think my best nugget would beabout the practice of medicine
and how it's changing.
I think, as a as a lay person,it can get very daunting seeing
all the options and beingfrustrated by the options, but
know that there are doctors andthere's practitioners like me
that are thinking outside of thebox and actually looking for
(20:24):
solutions to help people heal,as opposed to just covering it
up or trying to, you know, runthrough the system or run
through their clinic day.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, one of that's one of the things, again, I
always say on the North side of40, I'm 40, be 45 soon.
I've been on this journey and Ijust never ceases to amaze me
how much of a capacity the humanbody has to heal itself and how
we live in a society, thisinstant gratification, quick fix
(20:56):
society, where everybody'slooking for the magic pill, the
one thing that you could do, andthere really is no magic bullet
for any of this.
It all goes back to lifestyle,right, your diet, what you put
in your body, how you take careof yourself, your exercise, all
this stuff that seems so simpleon its face but everybody has
such a hard time implementing ona daily basis.
And I see a lot of that in you,kind of this approach to
(21:19):
medicine, in trying to treat theunderlying issues and really,
really truly heal yourself, asopposed to just slapping a
bandaid on, which so many,unfortunately in the medical
profession do nowadays.
It's unfortunate that we livein a system that's like that.
So it's a breath of fresh airto see somebody like you doing
what you do, guyon.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know it is frustrating whenyou were in a, when I was in my
first practice in thetraditional, in a very, very
traditional sense of orthopedicsand sports medicine, you see 35
, 40 patients a day.
It's really hard in that littletime to give the level of care
that people deserve, right, yeah, even the other day I was
(21:59):
having, I was working out withone of my colleagues in the area
who's more in the university.
He's at the university doingwhat I do and we were talking.
He's like I can't even get myultrasound out to look at the,
to diagnose the patient, becausemy athletic trainer or my
medical assistant is alreadylike we have another patient
that's waiting or we have threemore patients that's waiting,
(22:21):
whereas you know a setting likethis where you are maybe outside
of the insurance system but youget all the care.
Like each one of my patientvisits, a new patient visits in
an hour.
You get an hour with me to sitdown to talk to me.
I examine you, I do anultrasound, I diagnose, I do
whatever I can, the stuff that Ican't do.
If I need an MRI, then I orderit Right and then we move
(22:41):
forward.
But I have found in my careerthat spending that little extra
time usually helps me find ananswer that most people aren't
looking for or aren't seeing.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So for anyone out there listening that is
experiencing problems andthey're frustrated, like you
were, with their condition,they'd like to reach out and
learn more.
What's the best way to connectwith you guys?
Maybe share your website andyour contact information.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
So our website is proinstitute
P-R-O-I-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-Ecom, andour phone number is 305-209-1951
.
We're located in Davie.
We're on State Road 84, rightin between Knob Hill and Hiatus
Road.
Kate or Geetha will talk to youon the phone.
You'll be in love with them andthen you'll come and see me and
(23:30):
hopefully still have a goodexperience.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Perfect, and we will, of course, drop a link below in
the description to all of yourcontact information so folks can
reach out.
Gayan, it's a pleasure havingyou on the show, brother.
It was really nice learningabout your story and what you're
offering to our community, sothanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Thanks so much, Jeremy, for having me.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I really had a good time.
I'm glad to hear it and thanksto our listeners for tuning in
and we will catch everyone nexttime on the next episode of the
Good Neighbor Podcast.
Everyone, take care and have ablessed day.
Everyone take care and have ablessed day.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Bye-bye.
954-231-3170.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place
where local businesses andneighbors come together.
Here's your host, Jeremy Wolf.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Oh, hello everyone and welcome back.
I was recently at the Chamberof Commerce luncheon and I met
our next guest.
Actually, I didn't meet him,but I met his lovely wife.
He had to step out a little bitearly, but, as you guys know,
anytime I encounter a newbusiness through the chamber, I
always like to extend an olivebranch and invite them on the
show to learn a little bit moreabout what they do and how they
(00:35):
help our wonderful community.
So today our guest is GayanPuventron, and Gayan joins us
from Pro Institute.
Gayan, welcome to the show,brother.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you so much.
I really am honored to be here.
This is really cool andexciting for me.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, happy to have you, man, and thanks, as always,
to our listeners for tuning into learn more about our great
community and the businessesthat serve us.
So, without further ado, whydon't you tell everyone a little
bit about what you guys do atPRO Institute?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
So we are a regenerative orthopedic and
sports medicine practice.
So PRO stands for PuventrinRegenerative Orthopedic
Institute, and so I brought myexperience from the general
medicine or allopathic normal MDschool to a more alternative,
natural healing approach tohealing orthopedic injuries.
(01:27):
So we utilize a lot of thingslike peptides, prp, which is
called platelet-rich plasma.
We use stem cells, not the onesyou get from the bottle but the
ones from your own body.
We do different nutrient IVs,we do ozone therapy, we do some
like nutrient testing.
There's a whole bunch ofdifferent things that we do to
try to optimize the body fromthe inside to help it heal
(01:49):
better.
And then sometimes I have to doinjections as well.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I've been doing a lot of podcasts lately with.
I just did one with mypodiatrist the other day and we
were talking about this wholeidea of regenerative medicine,
and I've done a lot with variousbusinesses that are in like the
holistic healing space andthere's been this common theme
and I think it's happeningbecause as I get older I'm more
(02:15):
attuned to this, I'm more awareof the body's ability to heal
itself.
So I'm really fascinated by theapproach to this holistic
regenerative medicine.
Can you speak a little bit?
You just mentioned some of thevarious services that you offer.
Can you speak a little bit moreabout this distinction between
traditional medicine, sportsmedicine specifically, and this
(02:36):
idea of regenerative medicineand kind of healing from within?
Like for somebody that hasn'theard about that or has heard
regenerative medicine butdoesn't really know what it is?
Go down that rabbit hole alittle bit.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Sure Be happy to.
So you know the um, my, myresidency and my, my fellowship
were in sports medicine as anon-operative doctor, and so
typically, or traditionally, ifyou were to come and see me in
that type of office I wasworking in an orthopedic office
I would evaluate you.
I would say oh, you have a kneeinjury, maybe a meniscus tear,
(03:10):
let's do some physical therapy.
Maybe let's do a cortisoneinjection, do some medications,
try to manage the symptoms.
If it doesn't get better, go tosurgery.
Right, that's what ends uphappening with a lot of patients
.
So I got really frustrated withyou.
Know, I feel like I have reallygood skills with my hands and I
wasn't getting to use them verymuch.
So with regenerative medicine,what we do is we harness your
(03:32):
body's own ability to healitself because, just like when
you cut yourself on the arm, youknow your body is going to heal
it.
So what we do is we'll takeeither stem cells or PRP, inject
it into whatever is injured andthen that stimulates it to heal
and make it feel better.
That works.
On meniscus tears, rotator cufftears, labral tears, arthritis
(03:52):
of the knee, arthritis of thehip, anything that really can
cause a lot of aches and painswe're able to help heal those,
not just by masking it.
You know, like a cortisoneinjection we talk about to
decrease pain it just masks thesymptoms and in the end we know
that it makes things a lot worse, whereas these injections or
these treatments actually helproll the clock back so that
(04:15):
we're not having the cause ofthe pain anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It seems like a no brainer to me to at least
attempt to heal the body throughthis idea of regenerative
medicine, as opposed to justgoing straight to the more
invasive types types ofprocedures.
Now, do you also I'd imaginethat you also do the surgery
aspects of it Like, do you do?
Do you run the full gamut, oryou just specifically focus on
the regenerative side and if itcan't be, the issue can't be
(04:41):
addressed through that you referthem out to like a surgeon if
they ultimately need surgery.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I my.
My treatments stop when theinjections or the needle based
therapies don't work anymore.
So if somebody needs to have asurgery to fix whatever, then
I'll refer out.
Surgery is sometimes the answer.
Sometimes patients do come tosee me and they're too far gone
I can't help it.
But there are so many patientsthat I see that you know they
(05:10):
have a partial rotator cuff tearthat their surgeon says oh, you
did six weeks of physicaltherapy, let's operate on it.
They don't want to.
I fix them.
And then they have to go backto the surgeon and say, hey, I
guess I don't need the surgeryanymore.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Are you finding that through these non-invasive
regenerative approaches you'regetting a very, very high level
of success with patients, or isthis something that works for
some period of time and thenoften needs to go?
I guess it just depends on thecase.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
right Depends on the individual, but it depends on
the case, it depends on theindividual and it also just
depends on what's going on Right.
So the again, the main focus ofthese treatments is to heal the
injury.
So people always ask me is thispermanent?
Well, it's as permanent as asurgery is going to be.
It's as permanent as your body,your body or the biology is
(06:02):
going to allow it to be.
So, like again a rotator cufftear in the shoulder, we can
heal that and it's not going totear again until 10, 15, 20
years down the road when it'sgoing to naturally wear down and
degrade.
Arthritis, which is adegenerative condition, tends to
be a little bit different.
That one requires a lot moremaintenance tends to be a little
(06:26):
bit different.
That one requires a lot moremaintenance.
You know we do those injectionsmaybe once a year, once every
18 months, just to keep thingsas healthy as possible on the
inside.
But it's not like a again, it'snot a temporary fix where you
know we're just masking it for acouple months and moving
forward.
I mean, I do agree it's kind ofa no-brainer for a lot of these
conditions that I see and treatthat people try this.
(06:49):
I've had pretty good results.
I've been doing this for 12years now.
I believe.
I think that part of my successends up really being because of
patient selection.
I am very selective on who Ithink this stuff will work on
and I use a lot of the evidencefrom the conferences I go to and
I teach at.
But you know, when we get 70 to80 to 90 percent success rates,
(07:12):
I mean I get to be prettybullish on how well these things
work earlier that you werefrustrated by kind of like the
old school way of going aboutthis.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
What ultimately seeded that frustration, and
does this go back to beforemedical school that you've
always had this kind of likeholistic approach to medicine?
Talk a little bit about how youkind of evolved into this
specific field of regenerativemedicine.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So I think with most things that people are
passionate about, there's apersonal story involved, and for
me it is the same thing.
When I was a junior in college,I hurt my shoulder lifting
weights.
I partially dislocated it,point where it's bad.
(08:09):
He had me see two of our familyfriends who are orthopedic
surgeons and their solution tome was well, we can operate on
this, but you're better off notand just dealing with it and
great advice right it was likethey're like oh, if it the same
doctor device, like, if it hurts, don't do it.
I'm like you know what?
I'm 20 years old.
I want to lift weights, I wantto play basketball, I want to
play golf, I want to play.
There's all these things I wantto do.
(08:30):
I can't not do them at 20 yearsold because my shoulder hurts.
So my dad and I, you know, goton this regimen of he had me do
physical therapy and then he wasgiving me cortisone injections
and after, you know, the firstcortisone injection probably
lasted me nine months a year,give or take, and then probably
(08:51):
lasted me nine months a year,give or take, and then the next
only lasted like three or fouror five months.
And then we did another one andit only lasted like three weeks
.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And I'm just like, and my and I go and ask him
again hey, can I get another one?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
he goes no, you can't do it that many because it's
going to do damage.
So then we go and talk to myfriends, the surgeons, and they
tell me well, we can operate onit now that you've failed the
normal conservative treatment.
Um, but you're going to have tobe in a sling for six weeks or
eight weeks and it's going to beanother three to four, five
months of rehab before theshoulder feels good.
(09:20):
And here I am, a 21 year old atthis point, getting ready to go
to medical school.
I'm like when am I going tofigure this out?
And so from medical school Ijust kept dealing with it.
And then, once I got intoresidency, I was really into
sports medicine.
I've always been into sportsmedicine, but I started like
looking at different ways ofhealing things naturally.
So I started by I don't know,it was like an in flight
(09:43):
magazine where they talked aboutgrowth hormone injections.
Like, oh, maybe if I injectedgrowth hormone into my shoulder
that would help.
Never ended up going down thatroute because luckily, when I
was in residency there was asports medicine fellowship with
a doctor that was doing some ofthese regenerative things and
he's talked to me about PRP, andso I kind of switched focuses
from again traditionalregenerative medicine or
(10:04):
traditional sports medicinestuff to more the regenerative
side, or that was my passion.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, that's pretty cool how you landed into that.
We're having that specificissue.
And then you were in asituation where you could kind
of test the waters on yourselfto see how things went and kind
of validate what you werelooking for.
Reminds me of a story formyself.
I herniated my L1 S5 lumbar wayback when and I couldn't.
Whatever I did, I got theepidurals.
It worked just like you said.
(10:31):
The first one worked reallywell, the second one not so much
.
The third.
By the time I did it, the thirdthird one didn't have much of an
effect.
I was getting acupuncture, Iwas doing all sorts of things to
avoid getting a microdiscectomy and I was one step
from getting the surgery.
And somebody finallyrecommended to see a
chiropractor to try discdecompression, spinal disc
decompression and I went intothat machine and it took a while
(10:52):
but after going two times aweek for several months finally
got the pressure off the nerveand I was able to get back to
normal and I haven't had anissue really since and that was
all done through.
I guess you could call thatlike regenerative, right, it's
through the body, right.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, it's your body healing itself.
I mean that's.
I think people forget about howimportant the chiropractor or
the physical therapist can be.
You know they're going tobecause a condition like yours
that you're talking about partof it is, you know the alignment
is off right.
So you correct the alignment onthe top, like I can put a new
tire on, but if your alignmentis still bad, the tire is going
(11:30):
to go bad again, whereas thechiropractor, the physical
therapist, they're going toadjust all of those motions and
the way that your muscles fire,so that way it doesn't keep
bothering it and thedecompression obviously helps
but getting those muscles.
I'm sure that did some otherwork to get the muscles stronger
along your spine, whichultimately is what gave you the
long lasting relief.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, your spine, which ultimately, is what gave
you the long lasting relief.
Yeah, your, so I met at thechamber again.
I alluded to at the front ofthe show.
I didn't meet you personally.
I met.
I met your wife.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
She also works with you at the practice.
She is the practice, she's theboss, she's the practice manager
, she's the one that tells mewhat to do, when to do it, how
high to jump.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
So how did you meet her through the field?
Tell us a little bit about howyou guys linked up and how you
ended up working together andstarting this practice together.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So we actually met a long time ago when we were in
college.
So I met her when she was afreshman in college and I was a
junior or senior, so rightaround the time where I hurt
myself Interesting story mygirlfriend at the time and her
boyfriend at the time werebrother and sister, so the four
of us used to spend a lot oftime hanging out.
Nothing ever happened, nothingcrazy like that.
(12:41):
But after I graduated college,you know, we kind of went our
own ways.
I went to medical school.
We would talk once in a while,you know, just friendly medical
school, we would talk once in awhile, you know, just friendly.
And then one day, um, a coupleyears ago, she like sent me one
of those messages on instagram.
I was like, hey, how's it going?
And then we like literally didstop talking.
After that.
I mean, it was like one ofthose like weird, like it was
(13:02):
the right time, now we're gonnareconnect.
So we reconnected.
Uh, she was living in ohio atthe time this was right before
the pandemic so she flew downfor two weeks because it was
just a two week lockdown and sheended up never going back.
And then during that time shesaw me go through two different
sports medicine practices whereI was employed by other people.
(13:24):
She saw the frustration in meon a daily basis of not
necessarily being able to dothings the way I wanted to, or
implementing new therapies whenI think that they're good,
because the business peoplebehind it don't understand it.
She was a little bird in my earthat said you could do this on
(13:45):
your own.
You've been making people a lotof money for the last couple of
years.
Why don't you do it foryourself?
Why don't you do it foryourself?
And finally I said okay, youknow what, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Good stuff.
I always ask this when there'sa husband and wife team what is
one of the most rewarding thingsabout working with your wife?
And, on the other end of thatspectrum, what's one of the
biggest challenges about workingwith your wife and?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
on the other end of that spectrum.
What's one of the biggestchallenges about working with
your wife?
I think most rewarding is Iknow that we're both equally
invested in the success right,Because she wants to see me
succeed financially andemotionally and professionally
and she wants to see me keepgoing and climbing and she's
just as invested in that as I am, which you don't get with just
(14:30):
anybody right.
One of the challenges on theother side of that is-.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Careful Think before you talk, because she's going to
listen to this.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
She's going to listen to this and she'll agree with
me.
The biggest challenge is thebrain never shuts off, right,
because we'll do stuff here atwork and then we're thinking
about stuff at home, and then at10 30 at night in bed I'll be
like hey, wait a minute, whatabout this idea?
And she'll be like really, it's10 30 o'clock at night or the
vice versa.
She'd be like, hey, did youthink about this?
(14:59):
I'm like I really don't want tothink about this right now.
I need to decompress.
That's the hardest part.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
But you know, it's all for the greater good yeah,
yeah right, Separating work frompersonal, just sometimes
knowing when it's right to maybeput that thought down on a
notepad for the next day and notbring it up.
But you get so excited when thethought comes up in your head
You're like I want to share thiswith you right now.
I can see how that could beinteresting.
So do you guys have kids?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
No kids.
We've only been married forwe're going on four years now
but we're working on the kidpart.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Very, very cool.
So what would be looking back?
So what I found through my lifeexperiences is that I'm often
defined by my most challengingexperiences, more so than the
rewards or the triumphs thatI've had.
Right, the good stuff is great,don't get me wrong but the
(15:53):
things that you go through, thatyou really struggle with in
life, that at the time you'regoing through it feels like the
end of the world and it feelslike there's no hope.
But then, retrospectively,looking back at it years later,
you can say, wow, man, I'mreally grateful for having gone
through that experience becauseit really helped shape me into
who I am today.
Is there an experience likethat that comes to mind
throughout your journey,something that you struggled
with, a hardship, a challengethat really helped to define you
(16:16):
into who you are today?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I mean I think right now I'm going through one right
Starting this new business, thatit's only been open for a year.
So I've gone from a very, verystable life where patients were
just showing up at my door andyou know I was getting a nice
paycheck and a nice salary andall that kind of stuff, and now
it's.
You know I.
I know that in the future I'lllook back at this and be like,
(16:40):
of course it was worth it.
And you know, you knew you weregoing to succeed.
But when you're in the weedsit's sometimes challenging.
I've had similar situationslike that, I mean in education,
right here in college I neverthought I was gonna get into
medical school.
And then medical school theyteach you how stupid you are the
entire time.
So you're like I'm never, nevergonna get through this, I'm
(17:01):
gonna just kill everybody.
When I get into residency, andthen residency, they're telling
you don't kill anybody.
And then you know you're, am Iever gonna make it through this
whole treatment thing?
And you know it, it's, it was.
Uh, the the medical educationsystem is very, very challenging
and you never think that you'rereally gonna make make it
through.
And then when you do you like,look back and you kind of miss
(17:22):
it, like there's a lot of stuffthat I remember complaining
about in the moment, like when Iwas in medical school in the
Caribbean.
I'm like man, I hate it here, Idon't want to, like I'm in
paradise and I'm studying.
But then you look back andyou're like man, all my friends
were like two-minute walk awayfrom me and now we're like all
around the country.
So like it's just interestinghow your perspective can change
(17:44):
when you're removed from thetrauma, the direct removal of
trauma.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Indeed indeed, and appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, starting.
I speak to tons of localbusiness owners on the platform
and if you haven't run abusiness or been an entrepreneur
or started something fromscratch, you don't know.
It can be extremely frighteningand a harrowing experience.
(18:09):
Because your specialty lies inmedicine.
Right, you went to medicalschool.
You're a doctor.
Right, you deal withregenerative medicine, but as a
business owner, now you got todeal with it.
It's great that you have yourwife to help you with all this,
but now you've got to wear everysingle hat.
Right, you also got to be aboss.
You've got to be anadministrator.
You've got to do all thesedifferent things and it can be
very, very difficult, but younailed it.
(18:29):
Right, you know that if youjust put in the work now and do
what's required, it'll all payoff in the end, as it always
does.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I'm very lucky that my wife has a much better
business mind because, you'reright, like I spent my entire
time and my entire educationlearning about science and
healing and helping people.
I never learned about thebusiness aspect of it.
I had a really interestingmeeting with a kind of a mentor
the other day and he was tellingme you know what you don't need
to like.
You've gotten to the pointwhere now the regenerative
(19:00):
medicine is second nature.
It's not something you have tothink about, you just know what
to do.
But now you have to go to thenext part of now.
You have to be a business owner.
Now you have to be, as you said, a manager.
Now you have to think aboutmarketing and all these other
things that the entire time ofyour career you're like that's
somebody else's job, now it'smine right.
Now it's mine Right.
But thankfully I have my wifethat can do those things really,
(19:21):
really well, because that washer trade.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, they.
They can often do them a lotbetter than us, can't they?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yep Guilty as charged .
I'm not alone there.
What would be one thing thatyou'd like to leave our
listeners with?
It can be about the business.
It could be about life ingeneral, piece of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
One thing you'd like to drop, one, one nugget.
I think my best nugget would beabout the practice of medicine
and how it's changing.
I think, as a as a lay person,it can get very daunting seeing
all the options and beingfrustrated by the options, but
know that there are doctors andthere's practitioners like me
that are thinking outside of thebox and actually looking for
(20:24):
solutions to help people heal,as opposed to just covering it
up or trying to, you know, runthrough the system or run
through their clinic day.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, one of that's one of the things, again, I
always say on the North side of40, I'm 40, be 45 soon.
I've been on this journey and Ijust never ceases to amaze me
how much of a capacity the humanbody has to heal itself and how
we live in a society, thisinstant gratification, quick fix
(20:56):
society, where everybody'slooking for the magic pill, the
one thing that you could do, andthere really is no magic bullet
for any of this.
It all goes back to lifestyle,right, your diet, what you put
in your body, how you take careof yourself, your exercise, all
this stuff that seems so simpleon its face but everybody has
such a hard time implementing ona daily basis.
And I see a lot of that in you,kind of this approach to
(21:19):
medicine, in trying to treat theunderlying issues and really,
really truly heal yourself, asopposed to just slapping a
bandaid on, which so many,unfortunately in the medical
profession do nowadays.
It's unfortunate that we livein a system that's like that.
So it's a breath of fresh airto see somebody like you doing
what you do, guyon.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know it is frustrating whenyou were in a, when I was in my
first practice in thetraditional, in a very, very
traditional sense of orthopedicsand sports medicine, you see 35
, 40 patients a day.
It's really hard in that littletime to give the level of care
that people deserve, right, yeah, even the other day I was
(21:59):
having, I was working out withone of my colleagues in the area
who's more in the university.
He's at the university doingwhat I do and we were talking.
He's like I can't even get myultrasound out to look at the,
to diagnose the patient, becausemy athletic trainer or my
medical assistant is alreadylike we have another patient
that's waiting or we have threemore patients that's waiting,
(22:21):
whereas you know a setting likethis where you are maybe outside
of the insurance system but youget all the care.
Like each one of my patientvisits, a new patient visits in
an hour.
You get an hour with me to sitdown to talk to me.
I examine you, I do anultrasound, I diagnose, I do
whatever I can, the stuff that Ican't do.
If I need an MRI, then I orderit Right and then we move
(22:41):
forward.
But I have found in my careerthat spending that little extra
time usually helps me find ananswer that most people aren't
looking for or aren't seeing.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So for anyone out there listening that is
experiencing problems andthey're frustrated, like you
were, with their condition,they'd like to reach out and
learn more.
What's the best way to connectwith you guys?
Maybe share your website andyour contact information.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
So our website is proinstitute
P-R-O-I-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-Ecom, andour phone number is 305-209-1951
.
We're located in Davie.
We're on State Road 84, rightin between Knob Hill and Hiatus
Road.
Kate or Geetha will talk to youon the phone.
You'll be in love with them andthen you'll come and see me and
(23:30):
hopefully still have a goodexperience.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Perfect, and we will, of course, drop a link below in
the description to all of yourcontact information so folks can
reach out.
Gayan, it's a pleasure havingyou on the show, brother.
It was really nice learningabout your story and what you're
offering to our community, sothanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Thanks so much, Jeremy, for having me.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I really had a good time.
I'm glad to hear it and thanksto our listeners for tuning in
and we will catch everyone nexttime on the next episode of the
Good Neighbor Podcast.
Everyone, take care and have ablessed day.
Everyone take care and have ablessed day.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Bye-bye.
954-231-3170.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.