|
||||||
|
PROLOTHERAPY OFFERS RELIEF OF
SOME PAINS Six years ago, Cynthia Tompkins couldn't stoop to pick up her 1-year old daughter. And she couldn't sit in a church pew, not for even an hour. She had to pull herself into a fetal position just to cough because her back hurt so much. For six years, the 36-year-old Litchfield resident lived in chronic pain. She had arthritis, scoliosis and degenerative disk disease. But none of these should have cause the kind of pain she suffered. She went through different therapies and self-treatments, from homeopathic remedies to copper bracelets, magnet therapy, "endless painful physical therapy", chiropractic visits and medications, without showing any improvement. Then a few moths ago, her husband, Jim, saw orthopedist Dr. Lawrence D. Cohen, of Advanced Pain Care in Danbury, on a television news broadcast. Cohen is a former director of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Danbury Hospital and a graduate of the Rusk Institute at New York University in Manhattan and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at the Yeshiva University in Bronx, N.Y. In the broadcast, Cohen described his treatments for chronic pain-un-familiar treatments such as Prolotherapy, Neural therapy, bee venom therapy and psycho-kinesiology. He described prolotherapy as a treatment for tendon and ligament sprain or laxity. Neural therapy is the treatment of injuries to the autonomic nervous system. Bee venom therapy is used to treat arthritis, musculoskeletal pain, chronic fatigue, carpal tunnel syndrome and other conditions. And psycho-kinesiology combines acupuncture, neural therapy and neuropsychiatric techniques such as color therapy, to treat unresolved emotional conflicts associated with chronic pain. In prolotherapy, a sugar-or chemical-based substance is injected several times over a period of months into the injured tendon or ligament. The substance induces Inflammation and stimulates the area to produce stronger and tighter attachments to the bone. Neural therapy uses local anesthetic nerve blocks to restore normal functioning to the autonomic nervous system. Bee venom works locally at an injection site to stimulate the immune system, to increase pain tolerance, or as an anti-inflammatory. All of the medicines used in these therapies are FDA approved, Cohen said. Although Tompkins was skeptical, she thought that perhaps one of these treatments could help her. Her husband said she had nothing to lose. "I had given up," she said. "The best fantasy I had was someone numbing me with Novocain and putting me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. I had no will to go on, to get up out of bed. It was bad and constant." "I'd never heard of anyone who was totally cured and pain-free from back surgery, and I was looking to avoid surgery. That's why I was open-minded to another non-invasive approach. I didn't have to go into the hospital and be cut open. I don't think there are any side effects. I wasn't taking a chance." Through a physical work-up and a look at her x-rays and MRI, Cohen determined that Tompkin's legs weren't properly aligned with her back and that her left hip was out-flared or forward from the right hip, she said. She had lax ligaments that did not hold her legs tightly in place and there was a structural shift in her hip bones that caused pain in her left pelvic and sacroiliac areas. Cohen recommended prolotherapy. "Its really very elegant and simple, " he said. "We induce inflammation and the ligament actually grows thicker, stronger and tighter and stabilizes an unstable joint." Tompkins describes it as an oyster making a pearl. "It makes sense to me," she said. "When a grain of sand gets into an oyster it creates tissue over that area to protect the oyster from being harmed by the irritant. It envelops it in tissue." You're causing an injury by jabbing in a needle and injecting an irritant substance, Cohen said. There will be pain for a day or two. The inflammation will keep going for four to six weeks, but healing can continue for up to a year, the literature suggests. Tompkins had four months of physical therapy at the Maloney Rehabilitation Center in Danbury and prolotherapy, which she completed in December. She says she is pain free. "Gosh, it seemed like maybe two weeks before I had pain-free moments," she said. "I remember going out on a Thursday, walking the dogs, thinking I could probably go for a walk." "If this is short-lived, at least this has brought me some time to get around and do things. I know where the answer is now to my problem. I can go back for more if need be." Some insurance companies cover these treatments, Cohen said. Medicare and Blue Cross do not.
|
||||||
|
Physicians Add Your Listing, Update Your Listing or learn more about Prolotherapy Training |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
Getprolo.com cannot guarantee the accuracy of any resources or information from or about the physicians listed on this website. The opinions and statements in this website DO NOT necessarily reflect the opinions of the physician members of the getprolo.com referral network and are those of the article author only. A medical testimonial is intended to represent that everyone will obtain the same favorable results from a given therapy. Getprolo.com disclaims any such intention.
Prolotherapy is a medical
technique. As with any medical technique, results will vary among
individuals.
Prolotherapy may not work for you and as with all medical
procedures there are risks involved. These risks should be discussed with a qualified
health care professional prior to any treatment.
This site is operated by Beulah Land Corporation. |
