Are you dealing with chronic pain that just will not go away? Instead of jumping to medications or surgery maybe you should be looking at regenerative injection therapies like Prolotherapy.
Hi everyone Floyd Meyer here I am a Physician Assistant with a Masters in Public health and I am currently working in an Integrative Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation clinic.
I recently started doing prolotherapy injections on my low back due to some chronic numbness in my left foot and I thought that by sharing my own journey with you that you might be able to solve your own issues as well.
A pub med search of “Prolotherapy” shows over 200 different articles and trials. Starting as early as the 1960s a physician named George Hackett was publishing research on the treatment of ligament and tendon “relaxation” by prolotherapy.
The basic idea is this. Prolotherapy solutions are injected into painful areas to repair damaged tissue.
The injections create a localized inflammatory response triggering the immune system to create the building blocks of ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and bone that make up the joint.
Prolotherapy, through a series of injections, REBUILDS the tissues from within by restarting the healing process.
More precisely, a systematic review on prolotherapy states, “Prolotherapy is a nonsurgical regenerative injection technique that introduces small amounts of an irritant solution to the site of painful and degenerated tendon insertions (entheses), joints, ligaments, and in adjacent joint spaces during several treatment sessions to promote growth of normal cells and tissues.” (Hauser et al., 2016)
The most common injection solution is dextrose or D-glucose which is a form of sugar found naturally in our bodies. Other solution options include things like glycerin, phenol, or ozone. Sometimes additional proliferants may be used to increase the healing response. These include stem cells from bone marrow, adipose tissue, or amniotic tissues, or PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy).
Generally, treatments include several sessions of injections given anywhere from 1 week to 2 months apart depending on the tissues being treated, the health status of the individual getting the injections, and the proliferant used.
The reason that I started getting prolotherapy injections myself is due to some chronic numbness in my left foot that has been bothering me for a little over a year. I have done physical therapy, chiropractic, traction, acupuncture, massage, all kinds of things but it just won’t go away.
So I just started getting injections of 12.5% dextrose with lidocaine a couple weeks ago. The first set of injections went really well. The procedure didn’t hurt at all while it was happening. I did have some increased soreness in my low back for about 2 days following the procedure, but nothing some heat and topical pain cream couldn’t control.
So far I have not noticed an improvement in the numbness, but I am hopeful that it will resolve in the coming months. I am planning on going in for another session of injections in about a week. If I do not see the improvements that I am looking for then I will start to add in some PRP to increase the healing response. PRP also has some data showing a positive effect with neurogenic inflammation which could prove to be helpful for what I have going on.
I hope that you have found this helpful. I just wanted to share with you all this part of my journey to optimize my body. If you have any questions please leave them in the comments below. I will be doing a follow-up video here in the next month or so hopefully with some good news.
Again this is Floyd Meyer reminding you to Heal Better so you can Do More!
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