Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Dr. Kimbie Casten

Credentials:  MD

Welcome, Dr. Kasten. Thank you so much for being on here for our spotlight series for the best in Utah public health. I’m really excited to jump in and dive into these questions with you.

But before we do that, I’m going to intro you to our listeners here and watchers, and we’ll go from there. Okay,

Dr. Keston is a non-surgical provider who does treatment of musculoskeletal and spine problems, sports and dance injuries, overuse and tendon injuries, sprains and strains, joint pains and arthritis management. She does concussion, relative energy deficiency in sports with female athlete triad, thoracic outlet syndrome, pelvic pain disorders, postpartum pregnancy related musculoskeletal pain and multidisciplinary care for stroke, spinal cord injury, amputees, trauma, brain injury and medically complex neuromuscular disorders.

She is also specializes in she did your OB. rotation as well during your internship and then now does PM&R.

So you are located in Utah County with Intermountain Hospital and I’m so excited to have you on here with all the things that we’re doing with the Spotlight Series. So without further ado can you jump in and tell us how you decided to go this route with your career and why?

So I was always into and pain neuroscience. And so when I heard about physical medicine rehabilitation, it was perfect. It was a kind of a no brainer. But then when I did a lot of rotations, I still loved a lot of things. And I couldn’t decide between OBGYN and PMNR.

So I actually ended up doing my first whole year of residency in OBGYN and then finishing the full PM&R residency and then doing a sports fellowship.

So I get to do all that stuff and still do women’s health from a musculoskeletal neuroscience standpoint.

Love, that probably would have been another route I would have taken too. Hey, what do you feel like makes you different in the way that you practice?

I think my specific training is it’s pretty rare to have the OBGYN experience that I have with the sports sub specialization in PM&R. I am very, um, focused on the fundamentals and the foundation of how your mechanics are affecting what’s going on in your body and how you can make your body better yourself.

But then I use the skills that I have to add medications or injections to help heal things or just make them feel better to help those mechanics go in the right direction in the long run. Love that.

Okay. Who would be an ideal fit for you? Like if someone wanted to, like, had needed help in certain things, like who are the people that you are in your office all day, every day that you love treating and love seeing?

I see so such a huge breadth. I see, I mean, if there’s anything spine, I see that the most, no question, but I love all athletic people, men and women that are like, especially looking for how to really fix what’s going on with their pelvic pain, really would love to do some work for themselves. And as well as having me help them with some injections.

So like, I love educating. I love helping guide through getting stronger, moving better, more mobility. And it’s, you know, it’s surprising how something that may have nothing to do with when you’re moving is because of how you’re moving.

Yes. and how your body just turns different muscles on when, how, how much, how little and in concert with each other. So I love, I would love to help anybody with any of that. I help people with neuromuscular disorders that have these issues, but also high level athletes. So really anyone.

Can you talk on like the types of procedures that you do and specifically help with with your line of treatment? I think that would be helpful for people to know.

So I do both ultrasound guided injections and x-ray guided injections of really any joint tendon nerve spine. I do spine procedures that go towards the realm of pain medicine subspecialist and not quite all the way to like a spinal cord stimulator or peripheral nerve stimulator.

But I do epidurals, physet joint injections, PRP, coccidial injections, pudendal injections, ilioingonal genitofemoral nerve injections, transversus abdominis plane block injections. If you’ve heard of any of those, those are all pretty common for pelvic pain.

Yes. Love that. Thank you for saying those. Okay. What does the process look like with, to work with you? Like how does someone come in? Do they need a referral? Can they just call? Like, what does that look like?

You can just call, you don’t need a referral, but if you have a medical history with this, please either get a referral so that just all the information gets sent or have it sent before your visit.

Perfect, great. Okay, and then, What does recovery look like in your lens and your scope of work? Meaning like if you’re seeing someone, they’re coming in with tons of things going on or pain or whatever, and then they have a procedure, what does that recovery time look like from start to finish? And how does that vary across different patients?

Umm..Typical steroid injections, you can be sore the day of because I just stuck a needle in you. And most of the time you feel generally great because you’re numb. And then the steroid slowly kicks in over the course of a couple of days and gets to its maximum effect at two weeks.

So you should be looking for its best work to be done by that two week mark.

Um, now if we’re going to do something like regenerative, like platelet-rich plasma or a dextrose injection or something called 10X, which we do for wear and tear on tendons, um, that actually will make you even more sore, but instead of just a pain management injection, that is actually trying to help you heal.

So we almost re-injure you and have you kind of start as though it’s an acute injury and you rehab it from there.

Very cool. Awesome. Any other ones that you want to touch on or is that?

That’s pretty much it.

Yeah. Perfect. And then what is something that most people don’t know that you think that they should know about your service lines that you provide through your procedures and treatment?

What most people don’t know? Most people don’t know what PM&R is.

Yeah. Elaborate on that.

And that’s where I was saying that it’s so broad. PM&R is just so broad. And then sports medicine is not just athletes. It’s just having a specialization in kind of like muscles, tendons, joints, biomechanics, rehab protocols, and how to get back into the activity level that you want to get back into, as well as working with surgeons. But I actually don’t know the answer to that outside of that people don’t know what my specialty is.

Yeah. Can you touch on the types of collaboration with people that you work with in that PM&R industry of like, who are the connection points of providers that you generally work with?

So physical medicine rehabilitation is very well versed in teamwork. We know all the different types of therapy that you can get, not just physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology. This is outside of the realm of pelvic health. and you know vocational rehab stuff like that um big teamwork we can work with surgeons we can work with other physicians we often need to co-manage with their physicians neurologists surgeons um other sports medicine or orthopedic surgeons.

Yeah that’s cool okay is there any type of thing that you want to promote to the audience about anything about your specialty in

General Um, we PM and our sports medicine doctors focus on your function and how to make your life better instead of just an isolated problem. Um, as for me, I want to keep you moving and active. And I, I will almost never tell you to stop doing something unless it’s truly unsafe.

Cool. Awesome. Hey, my favorite question to ask everyone is what is the main thing that you would like to be known for?

Yeah, I didn’t know how to answer this question. I feel like I would like to be known for working hard at the whole big picture that i’m good at the injections that i’m good at the rehab that

I’m good at educating you on what’s going on and that we do work together to have you work for yourself to get better i love that that’s well said didn’t know what to say but

Yeah. It was great um where can we find you how can we find you if we need to utilize your services?

So you can in K-A-M-B-I-E-C-A-S-T-E-N. And then my Intermountain page comes up. And so you can schedule through Intermountain.

There I do have some backup on booking. I do have urgent slots for acute urgent injuries. But yeah, just calling and scheduling with my front desk is easy peasy.

And bring the history with you.

Yes. Perfect surgeries, images, physical therapy. I want to know everything.

Yeah. Love that. Well, thank you so much for all you do in our community here in Utah. And thank you for being on the spotlight series. And I look forward to seeing you out and about.

Thanks.