Podcast Interview:
RC: Hello, everyone. This is Liz Harvey, coming to you from our studios in New York City, where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the U.S.s
In today’s episode, we are speaking with Dr. Warren J. Bleiweiss, a leader in the United States in the emerging medical field of oxygen ozone injection therapy, for the treatment of herniated discs, joint and muscle pain, and injuries. Dr. Bleiweiss pioneered oxygen ozone disc injection therapy in the U.S. He is a graduate of New York University, School of Medicine and is board certified in both Anesthesiology and Pain Management. His long list of accomplishments includes leadership experience as a hospital anesthesiology department director, the inventor of a patented medical device, and the founder of one of the first multi-disciplinary pain management centers in New Jersey. He has been successfully treating patients for over 30 years.
Dr. Bleiweiss specializes in minimally invasive alternative treatments that heal patients without surgery or potentially harmful medications. His treatment protocols are specifically designed to activate the body’s innate ability to recover and to regenerate. His practice has been producing excellent results by utilizing these alternative methods.
Today we are focusing on one of these alternative non-surgical treatments, oxygen ozone injection therapy, a safe and effective treatment for muscle pain.
Hello, Dr. Bleiweiss. How are you today?
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: I’m very well, thank you. How are you?
RC: I’m doing great. Thanks again for joining me. Can you first explain what oxygen ozone injection therapy is?
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: Yes, I’d be happy to. I’m glad you threw in the oxygen portion because that’s very important to distinguish medical ozone and oxygen treatments from ozone in the environment. Medical ozone oxygen treatments are extremely safe and effective ways to harness the healing power of ozone, which is a supercharged molecule of oxygen. It’s three oxygen molecules together. That treatment is used for a variety of medical conditions, such as a variety of pain conditions, painful conditions of the disc, of the muscles, and of the joints.
Now, I mentioned that medical ozone injection therapy is different than ozone. For example, in the environment, ozone in the environment is not in a pure oxygen environment. When I say environment, I mean just in the outside air. It is in an air environment, which is mostly nitrogen with some oxygen, and there’re also some pollutants, so it’s vastly different from medical ozone oxygen treatments.
What we do is we generate a very specific concentration of ozone, and specific concentration is important. It has to be generated with a special generator that’s very safe and has no component that the ozone reacts with and is very reliable in generating a specific concentration of the ozone. Once we generate it, it is in a 100% pure oxygen environment. That has amazing medical properties. It’s been used in Europe for over 75 years to treat a variety of conditions. It’s been proven safe and effective in thousands of medical research studies that have been published, even recently. There are many being published all the time. And in addition to being safe and effective, it’s a long-lasting treatment, which is very important. It’s a long-lasting treatment.
RC: How does oxygen ozone injection therapy safely treat acute and chronic muscle pain and injuries?
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: Well, I want to start by mentioning that there are a wide variety of acute and chronic muscle painful conditions and injuries. For example, fibromyalgia, whiplash injuries, sports injuries, pulled muscles, torn muscles, chronic muscle tension and repetitive injuries.
I want to just mention a little more about repetitive injuries and chronic muscle tension. When I say chronic muscle tension, it’s a type of tension, I don’t know if you get it but I get it, a lot of people have it, when you’re reading or writing or looking at the computer and you feel that tension in your neck and upper back, and it’s very annoying. Most people might not think of that as muscle pain, but it’s a type of. It might not be painful, but it’s a tension muscle condition. And then repetitive injuries could be anything from, let’s say you’re a runner and you have shin splints, or you’re a violinist or a guitar player and you have issues with the muscles in your forearms.
The good thing is that ozone is safe, effective, and long-lasting in treating all of these conditions. And it does so for multiple reasons. The primary reason is you could deactivate the trigger zone in the muscle with oxygen ozone injection therapy. Deactivating the trigger zone is a really, really important thing, and I could talk more about that later on in our discussion. It also relieves spasm and tension, and it increases blood flow and increases lymphatic drainage. It stimulates fibroblast proliferation. Now, proliferation is a fancy medical word, and it basically means that the number of cells are increasing, and fibroblasts are a very important component of connective tissue, so that’s a very good thing.
This is another extremely important point, it increases the ability of the body to cope with oxidative stress, which is one of the main stresses that any part of the body is under, and particularly the muscles. So, it’s all very positive for the muscles.
RC: How do you determine if a patient is a candidate for this therapy?
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: Patients who come to me for muscle problems usually have had other multiple treatments. The treatments, either they didn’t respond to them or they responded but the treatments didn’t last. I have 30 years of experience in treating muscle problems, either injuries or pain or tension. I’ve studied multiple modalities, including acupuncture, trigger point injections, dry needling, massage, so I’m aware of all of these modalities.
The way to determine whether a patient is a candidate for oxygen ozone injection therapy, the key, is palpation of the trigger zone. That’s the key to not only to determine if the treatment is for them, if they’re a candidate, but it’s key in making sure the treatment is effective and long-lasting. That takes years of knowledge to be able to properly palpate the trigger zone, because the trigger zone is not just muscle tension. The trigger zone is a very specific area of the muscle that is extremely active in, for example, the autonomic nervous system, and it has other qualities.
To be able to actually palpate it and know where it is, and it’s in a different spot in every muscle, it’s also not always in a spot that pain is perceived in, is a very key point. You can’t see a trigger zone on an MRI or ultrasound or an X-ray. You can’t tell where it is with an EMG. You have to know how to palpate it. And also the history and any test results I review, but the palpation is the most important aspect.
RC: What are some examples of muscle pain and injuries that you have successfully treated with oxygen ozone injection therapy?
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: Well, it’s effective in a large variety of muscle problems, painful problems, spasm problems, so it’s a great treatment. For example, I’ll just name some of the examples, sports injuries such as pulled muscles, chronic or acute neck or back pain or tension, fibromyalgia, school athletic injuries, whiplash pain, repetitive injuries, shin splints. There are many, many examples.
Some of my patients are happy to share their stories, and I’m thinking of one in particular who’s a nurse that I work with who has a story on the website. She had a chronic shoulder problem. Now, I did inject the shoulder joint also, but a part of her problem, a key part, was a nerve and muscle injury. She could barely do anything with the shoulder. After several treatments, she’s able to hold her child and do a lot of things with the shoulder, as well as get a good night’s sleep. She’s very, very happy. Those are some examples.
RC: What can someone new expect during an oxygen ozone injection therapy session, and how quickly can someone feel the results?
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: It’s a safe and clean office procedure. As we discussed above, the first step is to identify the trigger zone through palpation. That’s the most important aspect of the treatment. If you don’t identify the trigger zone and you don’t inject the oxygen ozone directly into the trigger zone, the likelihood of the treatment being successful and being successful for a long period of time is low.
So, the first step is I examine the patient. I identify the trigger zone. I prep the skin. I place a small needle into the trigger zone of the muscle. I generate a specific concentration, an amount of ozone. That’s another important point I believe I touched on earlier. It has to be the correct concentration. If it’s not the correct concentration, it won’t be effective, and the correct amount. Every muscle is different. Every trigger zone is different, and it has to be tailored towards that. The ozone and oxygen are injected, and the needle is removed.
It’s also very important to treat a region. It’s very rare, let’s say someone has upper back spasm, like trapezius spasm, or a spasm by the shoulder blade that’s just driving them nuts. If you just treat one muscle, it’s not going to be as effective and long-lasting. You really have to treat a whole region. So, I palpate the whole region. I find the trigger zones in all of the region. Like in the example I just gave, I would make sure there’s no trigger point in the rhomboid muscles, in the infraspinatus muscle, in the trapezius muscle, and then some of the smaller muscles around, like the supraspinatus and the levator scapulae muscle. Those are all medical terms for muscles, but most laymen know those terms. But it’s important. If you don’t treat all of the involved areas, it doesn’t work as well, so I’m very meticulous in doing that.
After the treatment, the patient goes home or back to work. They can drive afterwards. In terms of how long it takes to get better, usually one to two days. Patients sometimes get relief immediately, sometimes it could take up to a week, but usually one to two days. The difference in effectiveness is not related to how long it takes to get better. I mean, a person that gets better in a day is not necessarily going to have better relief than a patient who takes a week to get better.
I find with muscles in particular, the amount of time that it takes to get better is often related to the amount of time that the condition has been present. For example, if someone’s had this condition for three years, there’s a lot of lactic acid that accumulates because the muscle spasm chokes off the blood supply to the muscle, and the muscle’s existing in a chronic low oxygen state. So that muscle, when you treat it, that lactic acid is all going to be dissipated into surrounding muscles, so it’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s going to take a few days for it to recover and for it to improve versus, let’s say, an athlete who has a pulled hamstring that just happened. There’s less likely to be a huge amount of lactic acid accumulation.
RC: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Bleiweiss. We know you’re very busy, so I just want to thank you for your time and your help today.
Dr. Warren Bleiweiss: You’re welcome.
RC: For our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with the doctor, please visit www.alternativedisctherapy.com, or call 973-403-3334 to schedule an appointment.
On behalf of our team, we want to thank you for listening, and we look forward to bringing you more top-quality content from our country’s leading experts.
