Prolotherapy is an injection technique that stimulates growth of cells and tissue that stabilize and strengthen weakened joints, cartilage, ligaments and tendons. The injected solution intentionally causes controlled irritation in the injected tissue. This irritation is an inflammatory response, which increases the blood supply and thereby stimulates the tissue to heal and regrow new tissue.

Current Newsletter

May 4
The Role of Imaging in Prolotherapy
If low back surgeries are so unsuccessful, why do surgeons continue to perform them? The main reason is because they find abnormalities on MRI scans. Ironically most MRI findings have nothing to do with why the person has pain and this is the reason for most back surgery failures.

MRI and Lower Back Surgery
If low back surgeries are so unsuccessful, why do surgeons continue to perform them? The main reason is because they find abnormalities on MRI scans. Ironically most MRI findings have nothing to do with why the person has pain and this is the reason for most back surgery failures.

Knee Pain and MRI
Diagnosis of knee injuries is, in my opinion, too dependant on many large machines and invasive techniques. Your knee hurts so you visit the orthopedist, here he uses his tools to figure out why your knee hurts. While some of these tools are very impressive indeed, are they accurate?

Finding your pain
Lower back pain is one of the most common causes of pain and disability in the world, but often misunderstood. Why? Because most cases are due to musculoskeletal conditions such as sacroiliac joint dysfunction, pyriformis syndrome, or facet joint arthropathy. Such problems are not seen on MRI, CT, or X-rays, thus a clinician without expertise in curing these conditions will not be able to effectively manage them.

April 20, 2012
Prolotherapy with Platelet Rich Plasma for Labrum and Menisci Degeneration and/or Tears
I can’t remember the last time a patient of ours had surgery for a torn meniscus or labrum. I know I have sent a few patients for surgery in the past, but it has been a long time. Prolotherapy works very well for labrum (hip and shoulder) and menisci degeneration and tears and even more so when platelet rich plasma (PRP) is added. So what is PRP and how does it work?

Platelet Rich Plasma for treating chronic pain
When I’m interviewing people living with pain, I always start by asking 8 questions in the same order: 1 – how did your pain start, tell me the entire story from the beginning, 2 – where exactly is the pain, etc. Then the last question is always: “tell me very specifically how this pain impacts your quality of life?” At this point, more often than not, there is a brief pause and a look of surprise (no doctor has asked them this before), then the tears start to well up, the tissues come out, and the crying begins. Most commonly, the first words out of a person’s mouth are “I feel much older than I am”. Also very common are “I’ve lost all sex drive with my partner and I’ve become mean towards him/her”, or “I have no motivation to meet anyone, I go to work then I go home”.

PRP Therapy
Although PRP (platelet-rich plasma) Therapy has been around since the mid-1990s many people are still unaware of this beneficial treatment. Various fields of medicine, including dentistry, neurosurgery, wound healing, and orthopedics, have only just begun to scrape the surface of the long-term and ongoing benefits that can result from employing this valuable therapy.

Severe arthritis of the knee and leg length discrepancy
(pelvic tilt) treated with prolotherapy and PRP.
JG is a 64 year old male with severe knee pain. He works on elevators, and is constantly on his feet and needs to carry heavy tools and machinery. He frequently needs to kneel and climb lots of stairs at work, and could only walk up one step at a time. He was getting concerned about his job because he was not able to keep up with the younger employees, but needed the income to survive and help raise his grandchildren. JG already had physical therapy, arthroscopic surgery, cortisone, and Synvisc injections. He was told that knee replacement was imminent for his bone on bone arthritis.
 

April 13, 2012
More Spinal Surgery - Is it Necessary?
In the many thousands of patients who have visited us, in more than 95 percent of our patients, we find that the true diagnosis causing the pain is different from the diagnosis the patients had been previously given.

Very rarely will a doctor acknowledge a ligament or tendon injury as a cause of chronic pain. The main reason is because they find abnormalities on MRI scans. Ironically most MRI findings have nothing to do with why the person has pain and this is the reason for most back surgery failures.

Prolotherapy and Disc Problems
While disc problems cause back pain and are often responsible for sciatica (leg pain), ligaments that are strained or lax are the most common cause.

Back pain
We rarely if ever rely on an MRI. In our opinion these tests are a waste of money. A patient can come in with a big file of films and scans that cost them a lot of money out-of-pocket, and typically, there will be no useful information that will help us get the athlete back on the field. A skilled physician can make a more accurate determination of an athlete’s injury and treatment plan with a careful physical examination and history.

Chronic low back pain
Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is defined as ongoing back and/or back-related leg symptoms beyond three month’s duration. For those unfortunate individuals afflicted with this condition, even simple daily rituals such as getting out of bed, making breakfast, or doing laundry can be difficult tasks. Despite recent medical advances in both the diagnosis and treatment of the condition, CLBP remains the leading cause of pain and disability in developed countries.

Back surgery
In our practice we often see patients who are in severe back pain with an MRI, X-ray and/or scan that shows an inaccurate picture to determining a treatment plan. For instance, a patient can have muscle spasm from a simple back strain which can cause excruciating pain and may limit one’s ability to walk or even stand. Conversely, a large herniated disc may be completely painless. Yet that large herniated disc will send the patient for a surgery.


April 6, 2012
Ischial Tuberosity Pain
Hip & Buttocks Pain
When you have pain on the bottom of the buttock, especially when sitting and running, this could be indicative of ischial tuberosity pain. Sometimes a doctor will examine this area, find it to be tender to palpation, and give you a diagnosis of ischial bursitis. The RICE treatment of Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation will be given and sometimes an anti-inflammatory drug is prescribed. Cortisone injections may follow. A true bursitis is rare.

A Pain in the Buttock (and back) treated with Prolotherapy and PRP
Many of us who have had back pain will also feel the pain radiating down the leg, into the hip, and into the buttock.  It takes a great degree of skill, experience, and knowledge to determine what the appropriate treatment is for a patient with these symptoms.  We cannot just rely on the MRI, no matter how abnormal the disc or joint may seem.  The following case will illustrate this:

Prolotherapy for Pelvic Ligament Pain
This case study examines the effect of the addition of Prolotherapy to manual therapy, and pelvic and trunk exercises, in a treatment regime for a patient with pelvic and chronic low back pain (CLBP) who had previously failed manual therapy and exercise alone and in combination. We hypothesized that with continued exercise and the combination of Prolotherapy and manual therapy, there would be better improvement than any single intervention to reduce pain and improve stability in the lumbar spine and pelvis.

March 30, 2012
Ligament Pain -
Stretched, Torn Or Strained
If ligaments do not heal within several weeks they may remain chronically stretched, torn or strained. Many people do not realize how severe, or prolonged ligament pain can be. They assume that since its soft tissue, it will heal or that it can’t be that bad. While ligament pain may be confined to the injury site it can also refer pain to distant body parts through a portion of the autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic nerves.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
with Prolotherapy
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) typically refers to post-traumatic pain that spreads from the site of injury, exceeds in magnitude and duration the expected clinical course of the inciting event, and progresses variably over time. Burning pain is the primary symptom, but patients frequently report allodynia, changes in the color or temperature of the skin, and if the condition progresses, trophic changes of the skin, nails, and bone occur. The condition produces a high degree of suffering, lost productivity and cost of treatment. While there are many theories as to why CRPS occurs, success in treatment of CRPS with traditional medical therapies is dismal.
 

Traumatic Arthritis
Ligaments stabilize joints, if ligaments are loose, the joint is loose. Loose joints means the body will cause muscles to spasm and overgrow bone in an effort to stabilize the joint. Since stabilization will not occur; the joint will begin to make the "cracking" sound. Cracking of a joint means arthritis is starting. Additionally, if the joint periodically swells or feels painful during cold weather, arthritis is starting to form. If a joint or ligament is traumatized by injury and not fully allowed to heal, traumatic arthritis develops. Many of the old-time athletes I see in my practice have some form of traumatic arthritis. However! Exercise and sports participation do not cause arthritis; only an injury to the joint causes arthritis.

March 23, 2012
Neck Pain
Let’s say you have neck pain. Or maybe you develop pain running down your arm. You see your doctor and he or she determines the cause is from a degenerated disc in your neck (spondylosis) or possibly a herniated disc.

After a few failed conservative treatments he’ll probably tell you that you need a cervical discectomy with or without a fusion. What does that mean?

A Treatment for Whiplash, Chronic Neck Pain and Headaches
“Whiplash” is a term used to describe traumatic injury to the neck typically resulting from rear-impact motor vehicle accidents. It is one of the most common causes of chronic pain in developed countries with a prevalence of 1% in the general population. Typically, the prognosis after common whiplash is quite good. Three-quarters of those injured recover completely within six months. Unfortunately, for the remaining 25% persistent neck pain, headaches, shoulder pain, and a variety of other symptoms can become a permanent fixture in their lives. In 10% the symptoms are severe; 4% are unable to return to their previous occupation.

Degenerative Disc Disease in the Cervical, Lumbar and Thoracic Spine
This article discusses the case of 57 year-old Bill B, a dentist, who suffered from chronic pain from ligamentous laxity and degenerative disc disease in the cervical, lumbar and thoracic spine. His headaches and back pain were treated successfully with Prolotherapy even after many years of other treatments with failed results.

March 16
Prolotherapy, a non-surgical alternative for torn meniscus
Recently we saw a retired school teacher. She twisted her knee getting out of a car. She had an MRI which showed a meniscus tear. Surgery was recommended with the impression that it would be repaired and that she would regain full pain-free function of her knee.  What did her surgery report show?  As with nearly all of these “meniscus repair” reports that we see, most show that the meniscus was indeed not repaired, but removed.

Knee injuries in teenage soccer
Now that the spring soccer season has begun, many parents call our office about making an appointment for their player's knee pain. One of the first things they ask is "Should we I get an MRI?"
 

The Journal of Prolotherapy

Prolotherapy Research at
The Journal of Prolotherapy