Sacroiliac Pain and Prolotherapy

● Robert Filice, M.D. Former staff physician

I never get tired of hearing from patients who have experienced alleviation of their chronic pain by receiving Prolotherapy. On a follow up with a particular patient, the patient told our staff he felt so much better that he wouldn't need to be coming back into the office anytime soon.

What made me look into this a bit further was the comment by some of the other staff here that remembered him when he first came in for treatment. They described him as grouchy, irritable, and very skeptical on the date of his first appointment. When he told our staff he felt so much better, he was said to be happy, relaxed, and friendly. What made this huge difference in his life and in his personality? Prolotherapy eliminated his chronic low back pain after a total of only three treatments.

This patient had a history of back pain dating back to a 1993 injury sustained on the job. He had a microdiscectomy in 1995 with some improvement, however he re-injured it in 1999 with a motor vehicle accident.

At various times he tried chiropractic manipulation, massage, and Steroid injections and none of them helped.  A new MRI in 2004 showed a small herniated disc between L5 and S1, and the orthopedists he consulted wisely told him another surgery might not help him. Many people show minor disk bulges on MRI which have absolutely nothing to do with the pain they are having. This man’s pain was extremely severe, and it radiated down the back of both legs in a classic “sciatica” pattern.  He rated the pain a 10 on a 10 point scale, and had difficulty with both standing and sitting. He was avoiding pain medications because Vicodin had some serious side effects on him previously, and it had also raised his blood pressure. He had started utilizing Qi Gong (an exercise meditation technique), and it was his instructor who advised him to come to our office to obtain Prolotherapy treatments.

When he came to the office the first time he could barely walk, and it was difficult for him to imagine that Prolotherapy (or anything else) could work to get him out of pain. Pain causes great strain on the personality, and it was evident that his life was miserable. On examining him, I discovered that his pain originated primarily in the sacroiliac joints and in the ligaments that run over the tops of the lower lumbar vertebrae. These findings allowed me to be quite optimistic in terms of my prognosis for his recovery. Prolotherapy rarely fails to help in such cases. Surgery would definitely NOT have helped him. He did agree to have Prolotherapy that first day, and sure enough when he came back for his second treatment 3 weeks later he was already noticing dramatic improvement which he himself rated at 90%!

He was still having a bit of pain on getting in and out of certain chairs, but generally was walking and standing without pain. When he returned after treatment #2 he essentially reported no further pain, though he did have a time when after extended activity it was feeling weak. He received treatment #3, and the next I heard he was telling our staff he felt so much better that he did not need to be coming back into the office anytime soon.

Essentially this patient got rid of almost all of his pain after one Prolotherapy session. It only took two more to solidify his gains and finish his course. The take home point is that Prolotherapy is an outstandingly effective treatment for sacroiliac pain. I cannot guarantee similar results in every case, but when I see a chronic low back with primarily sacroiliac localization, I KNOW that patient is going to get better fast. This case is only one of many I have treated. If YOUR pain is off center on either side of the low back with or without sciatica or if you’ve been told you have sacroiliac joint strain or lumbago, do yourself a big favor and see a good Prolotherapy doctor. Chronic pain makes for a miserable life. Proltherapy can help you win the battle against chronic pain.