| Prolotherapy for Chronic Pain and Sports Medicine in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago Hope Practiced Here |
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| Prolotherapy for Chronic Pain and Sports Medicine in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago Hope Practiced Here |
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PROLOTHERAPY APPOINTMENT INFO |
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Prolotherapy
regenerates knee
cartilage
One
doctor trying to validate the treatment of Prolotherapy is
K. Dean Reeves, M.D.,
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Specialist, in private practice in Kansas
City, Kansas. He has just completed three double-blind studies on using 10
percent
dextrose versus water injections on finger/thumb arthritis,
knee
arthritis, and
anterior cruciate ligament injured knees. Injections were given
every two months of dextrose or water. After three injections, all patients were
given the dextrose proliferant for three more injections. In the knee studies,
only one intra-articular (inside the joint) injection was given per knee at each
session. As of this writing, the x-ray readings at one year had just been
completed. In the finger/thumb arthritis study there was a 53 percent
improvement in pain, and eight degrees of improvement in flexibility. In the
knee arthritis study there was a 44 percent improvement in pain, 63 percent
improvement in swelling, and a 14-degree improvement in flexibility. There was
an 85 percent reduction in knee buckling episodes. The loss of cartilage not
seen on x-rays by one year and bone spur measurements showed improvement. Of
interest was the fact that those without cartilage did nearly as well. In the
knee laxity (ACL) study, pain improved 27.5
percent, swelling by 51 percent, and knee buckling episodes by 54 percent. X-ray
studies at one year showed improvement in two measures of bone spur and
near-significant improvements in thickness of cartilage in the knee. One should
remember that this study involved just one knee injection per session and
articular cartilage growth was seen. Typically in actual practice, a person with
laxity in the knee
ligaments may get 20 injections per visit. Dr. Reeves
summarized the findings as "...these double-blind studies with objective
and measurable endpoints all show that simple injection of arthritic fingers or
knees, or knees with ACL laxity, with non-inflammatory levels of
osmotic
stimulants can bring about favorable responses in pain, flexibility, and x-ray
findings." SURGERY It is not uncommon for patients
to tell us that surgery has been recommended to resolve their painful
conditions. Reasons for surgery are many, but they may have nothing to do with
the actual problem causing the pain! Trying conservative treatments before
undergoing surgery is only common sense. In more than 95 percent of our
patients, we find that the true diagnosis of the cause of chronic pain is
different than the diagnosis the patient had previously been given. Rarely
will a physician describe a ligament or
tendon injury as a cause of chronic
pain. Ligaments and tendons often do not appear on X-rays, one of the
primary diagnostic instruments of modern medicine. The diagnosis of ligament
or tendon weakness cannot be made by a blood test, electrical test, or X-ray.
It must be made using a listening ear and a strong thumb. Even back in early 1981 as new
and more effective methods of conservative treatment were being used
(including Prolotherapy), the need for surgery was decreasing. Bernard E.
Finneson, M.D., pointed out in a survey of surgical cases that "80%
should not... have been brought to surgery." It is quite possible that
with the widespread use of Prolotherapy this percentage would be even higher. In more than 95 percent of pain
cases, surgery can be avoided by utilizing Prolotherapy. Dr.
Hemwall, having
treated more than 10,000 pain patients, resorted to surgery for resolving a
chronic pain complaint in only one percent of the patients. Our
experience has been similar. In the event that surgery is necessary, the
previous Prolotherapy treatment will not hinder the subsequent surgical
procedure. Prolotherapy causes normal ligament and tendon tissue to form. The
surgeon will observe an area treated with Prolotherapy containing strengthened
ligament and tendon tissue. Surgery to alleviate chronic pain
involves the removal of tissue or replacement with prosthetic joints. To
alleviate chronic lower back pain, a surgeon may decide to remove a disc or
cartilage tissue. The two questions to ask are, "Who put that tissue
there? For what purpose?" We believe God placed disc tissue there to
stablilize and cushion the lower back, and cartilage tissue in the joints so
that bones glide smoothly over one another. What happens when the disc and
cartilage tissue are removed? If the disc is removed, the vertebral levels
above and below the surgerized segment develop proliferative arthritis. This
is due to these segments having to carry more of the force than they were
designed to carry in the lower back. If cartilage is removed, the bones no
longer glide smoothly over one another. Soon after this, a person notices a
crunching of the joint where the cartilage was removed. This crunching sound
is arthritis. The end result of surgical procedures that remove cartilage,
ligaments, and bone from knees, backs, and necks is often arthritis. In 1964, John R. Merriman, M.D.,
compared Prolotherapy versus operative fusion in the treatment of instability
of the spine and pelvis and wrote, "The purpose of this article is to
evaluate the merit of two methods of treating instability of the spine and
pelvis, with which I have been concerned during 40 years as a general and
industrial surgeon... The success of either method depends on regeneration of
bone cells to provide joint stabilization, elimination of pain and resumption
of activity. Ligament and tendon relaxation occurs when the
fibro-osseous junction to bone do not regain their normal tensile strength after sprain
and lacerations, and when the attachments are weakened by decalcification from
disease,
menopause and aging." Dr. Merriman summarized that
conservative physiologic treatment by Prolotherapy after a confirmed diagnosis
of ligamental and tendinous relaxation was successful in 80 to 90 percent of
more than 15,000 patients treated. Despite the many advances of
modern technology, surgery is fraught with many dangers. Dr. Hemwall
administered more than four million injections in over 40,000 patient visits
without even one permanent injury. In the last 38 years, I do not know of any
serious long term consequences from Prolotherapy. The procedure is done in
the office, takes less than 20 minutes in most cases, and does not require
time off from work. No pre-op type anesthesia is needed, hence no risk of
serious complications due to anesthesia. Compare this to a surgical procedure,
where general anesthesia is used to knock you out. There you are lying on a
table, unconscious. The anesthesia alone leaves you exposed to many possible
complications, including cardiac arrest, overmedication, or death. Take a look
at a pre-surgical consent form some time - the risk of death is clearly laid
out. If you are a healthy person, the risks are low, but common sense
dictates: why take any chances when a more conservative treatment is
available? Anyone given the option of surgery versus Prolotherapy should try
the more conservative option first. Other reasons to avoid surgery are: 1. Rehabilitation is much longer after surgery
than for more conservative treatments, sometimes requiring many days of
hospitalization and months of rehabilitative therapy. 2. The cost of surgery is astronomical compared
to more conservative treatments. Prolotherapy of the ankle runs a few hundred
dollars, as compared to tens of thousands of dollars for ankle surgery and all
of the hospitalization and rehabilitation expenses. And that's not even to
mention the added cost of Prolotherapy which may still be needed if the
surgery doesn't work! 3. Surgery is much more traumatic to receive. It
puts a great stress on the body and can sometimes cause the patient to feel
less confident using the surgerized limb. 4. Surgery irreversibly alters the patient's
God-given anatomy. 5. Surgery can have all kinds of complications
which cannot begin to be touched on in a book of this scope. One study of
arthroscopic ankle arthrodesis (ankle fusion) showed an overall complication
rate of 55 percent, including infections and continued pain. Finally, all the surgery in the world cannot
cause the new growth of healthy tendon and ligament tissue; at best, the pain
may be alleviated, but for all the expense, risk, and trauma, the underlying cause
of pain may never be addressed. Prolotherapy is a safe, simple,
inexpensive, effective, and proven cure for chronic pain. |
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Caring Medical
and Rehabilitation Services |
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