Prolotherapy For Severe Back Pain
And Before Joint Replacement

An old established treatment for chronic, severe back pain is called prolotherapy. This therapy is based on the idea that much disabling back pain is caused by weak ligaments and tendons. When these ligaments and tendons become weak the bones, muscles, and joints are able to move out of their correct position, producing pain. A sclerosing solution (sugar, cod liver oil, or corn extract) is injected with a very fine needle into a painful site. The resulting inflammatory reaction stimulates the body to produce collagen fibers at the site and the ligaments become pulled into their proper position, with disappearance of the pain. Weekly injections may be needed for several months. Dr. George Hackett who did research on prolotherapy, observed that twelve years after completing prolotherapy 82% of 656 patients considered themselves cured.

Prolotherapy appears to work because it causes ligaments and tendons to grow. A 40% increase in diameter of a tendon represents a doubling of tendon strength. A double blind study on 81 patients who had at least ten years of back pain was reported in Lancet July 18, 1987. Moderate to marked relief of pain was found in 88% of these patients following prolotherapy.

Recently it has been learned that prolotherapy should be tried before proceeding to joint replacement because many persons become pain free and are able to avoid major surgery. Replaced hips and knees have a finite lifetime and usually must be replaced every ten years. Call the American Association of Osteopathic Medicine at 800-992-2063 to find a physician who can do this therapy for you.

An unexpected bonus of prolotherapy may be disappearance of pain from an area far removed from the site of injection of the sclerosing solution. Dr. Robert Rowen of Santa Rosa, Ca. relates that he has seen prolotherapy work brilliantly for back, hip, knee, shoulder, sciatic, and migraine pain. His patient Eva received an injection into her right knee, which gave prompt pain relief. Within a few hours, her left knee became pain free as well. My anatomy guru  has a sensible explanation for the pain disappearance. Disappearance of  pain is usually the result of normalization of the normal gait, which has usually become compensatory. Compensatory gaits place additional stress on the back and joints. Normalization of the gait allows the body to go through more normal range and use of muscles, tendons, ligaments as well as the entire joint and reduces abnormal stresses.