Dr. Hanson has been performing biologic (live tissue from you) injections for nearly 10 years, longer than almost every other center or physician in the nation. The combined experience that comes from literally tens of thousands of injections matters to your outcome, the number of procedures you’ll need and the longevity of improvement. Don’t be fooled by providers who have practiced traditional pain procedures, Dr. Hanson has trained dozens of these physicians and has yet to find one that understands the difference between pain-only oriented care and regenerative oriented care without a lot of retraining. There are big differences in what you inject and how procedures are completed between the two approaches. Choose a provider who has dedicated his whole career to regenerative medicine.

This is actually the most important aspect of your care and will determine how well you can improve the procedures more than any other. It’s simple to understand. If the right place is not injected, how it is injected, or what it is injected with makes no difference! A two-hour initial assessment meticulously covering over 15 aspects of regenerative care is carefully approached to take into account, as much as possible, every potential contribution to your pain and function.

From specific methods to free and heal entrapped nerves to advanced spinal injections that can only be done safely with a combination of ultrasound with fluoroscopy to advanced bone marrow procedures, Dr. Hanson has either been the physician to develop or has learned the most advanced procedures that can be performed with today’s technology. Reaching and correctly treating as many of the involved structures as possible optimizes your outcome, and often decreases the number of times procedures need to be performed for any single patient. In the last 18 months, all but 5 patients have required only one or two procedures to achieve the relief and function they seek.
Guided Injections
Dr. Hanson has performed ultrasound (soft tissue) and fluoroscopic (x-ray) guided injections with regenerative agents for 10 years. Often in more complex cases, combinations of ultrasound and fluoroscopy will be synergistic for the optimal and safest placement of healing injections. Few practitioners have expert level skills with these injections in the regenerative model. Finally, Dr. Hanson is also one of the few physicians trained to use micro-arthroscopy (camera-guided) procedures in the nation. For very focal lesions in joins, there is no better visualization. A special permutation of guided injections overlaps with the assessment category. Dr. Hanson utilizes specialists in an imaging modality called digital motion x-ray, essentially a video x-ray, of any location in the body. More than any other modality, these images pinpoint exactly where treatment should be directed, particularly in the spine. Since adding this to his care, Dr. Hanson has noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of procedures he needs to perform for each individual.
Regenerative Agents for Injection
Dr. Hanson has extensive experience using every form and type of autologous biologic (your tissue) regenerative agent that is currently recognized. Moreover, he’s led teams in the laboratory to create the best agents through extensive protocols. For example, our PRP takes about 60-90 minutes to process. We have developed a five-step process that extracts intact cells and platelets in the optimal condition. By comparison, most centers will use an automated process that takes about 15 minutes, however, they really don’t know what they are injecting into you! That’s just one example. Learn more about the regenerative agents we use on our Services page.

Cell Counter

OrthoCure Clinic has invested heavily in technology to ensure we are creating, and recording with each procedure, exactly what we inject into you. We set the concentration of platelets to an exact range for each injection. It takes extra steps, extra time, and requires knowledge and experience in using specific concentrations of agents at different locations to create distinct responses. For instance, we have found through experience that fibrocartilage, such as discs and meniscus, improve more effectively with higher concentrations of platelets and regenerative cells than other tissue.

Flow Cytometry

Dual laser flow cytometry allows us to count exactly how many regenerative cells are present in our more advanced preparations from bone marrow and adipose (fat). These extremely powerful agents should be evaluated to ensure proper processing before being injected into you. They should also be tracked to help us understand trends in outcomes and appropriate expectations that we can give you based on your sample.

Tissue Grafting Techniques

Dr. Hanson’s experience using thrombin, Acell, amniotic tissue and bone (from the patient) can make all the difference in helping you avoid more invasive surgical procedures. Much more complex formulations and procedural placement techniques are required to provide this level of care for patients.

Bone Rejuvenation Techniques

A large portion of advanced arthritic joints have progressed beyond just cartilage degeneration; they also have deterioration of the bone. Injecting into a joint does not buoy the healing capacity of the bony support structures. Carefully placed cellular regenerative agents (bone marrow) directly into the bone that is under too much stress (similar to a stress fracture) gives the bone the needed factors to heal. Dr. Hanson is the physician who developed many of these procedures nationally.

Neurological Treatments

You know your nerves supply you with information about pain, cold, heat, and pressure. What you might not know is that the nervous system often malfunctions around areas of degeneration, injury, and surgery. Dr. Hanson assesses the neurological system at five different levels and incorporates healing injections for all areas of neurological dysfunction in addition to the treatment of the painful area from which you seek relief. Sometimes, it is only the neurological abnormalities that need treatment, but much more often, if these areas are left untreated as part of a more comprehensive approach, the procedure will not work nearly as well, or sometimes not at all. Dr. Hanson is recognized for creating neurological regenerative procedures in cases of severe nerve dysfunction such as complex regional pain syndrome and brings this experience to create an optimal healing environment for you.

Diet, nutrition, supplements, medications, medical conditions, hormones, smoking, and minerals all play a role in your potential to heal. The laboratory evaluation of your underlying medical health is not only an important consideration for assessing your reasons for pain, but also has a central role as a root reason for why your body is degenerating in the first place. This is a very involved aspect of care, and though it is your option as to whether it is addressed, Dr. Hanson has seen procedures work and last much more effectively if these are addressed. Coordinating these parts of care with you takes a great deal of experience to be done effectively and safely. Long term, we partner with many functional medicine specialists to participate in your care if desired.

It is a virtue. After starting the first regenerative fellowship in the nation and training 30 clinics nationally in the practice of regenerative medicine, Dr. Hanson was well known for his procedural capabilities. Since starting his own clinic, this has taken on new meaning. For the first time in 10 years of dedicated regenerative practice, Dr. Hanson now spends 1-3 hours on each procedure, meticulously guiding needles to the right location in the right way for an optimal outcome.