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HOUSTON - Early in Super Bowl week, as the dazzling fan plaza and NFL Experience destination downtown were starting to get cranking and the Falcons’ heartbreak was still days away, a low-key, medically themed news conference with just a relative handful in attendance began with a newsflash.
In walked former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick .
“It was one of the best feelings,” he said. “It started the year off right for me.”
Shortly thereafter Vick took a seat, as a member of a panel discussing a new non-opiate pain therapy called Pro-IV Chronic Pain DripFusion. Dr. Kevin Jackson of Chicago, a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons, is heading up Pro-IV's chronic pain study along with nine partner physicians across the country, including Dr. Mark Beaty of Atlanta.
Backers hope the procedure, which involves an infusion of anti-opiate, anti-steroid micronutrients to treat inflammation working in conjunction with pain medication will gain support among the professional sports community and beyond. Joining Vick, who has used the procedure for pain management, were U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Michael Smith, who returned to active duty after losing his arm in a 2011 traffic accident and Sara White, widow of NFL player Reggie White. She has multiple sclerosis and has also suffered the earlier affects of a tennis injury.
White talked about her battle with pain medication, too.
“I was an addict,” she said. “I was addicted to being pain-free.”
“If this was introduced to me three or four years ago then maybe I’d be playing,” he said. “That’s not the case but I can have an impact moving forward. There were a ton of injuries over the course of my career. Those are lingering injuries I still have to deal with to this day, in terms of pain. I felt really compelled to want to be a part of this process in helping athletes, past and present, understand what’s at stake in terms of health.”
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