Found a new prolotherapist WOW

Ok so i am crossing my fingers here, i found a new prolotherapist (Sport doctor) and he is not in the private business, so my insurance will cover the consultation with the doctor but i will still have to pay for the injections.

My old sport doctor charged 5$ per minute can you imagine plus the injection that usually cost 50-75$ each time.

A treatment was well around 135-170$, and lately he as been charging more for the treatments.

I feel lucky that i was able to find a clinic not to far from my house and another sport doctor that gives prolotherapy treatments. This is a very rare technique and is not known or used by many today.

My first meeting with the new doctor will be on August 30th, there is a place on the internet where doctors are given ratings and i am glad to see that he as a very high rating from patience that went to see him.

I got some good results from prolotherapy so far but i fear that i am not getting full treatment, and some parts in the lower back and upper back remain untreated. Not sure if the other sport doctor is in for the money and staling my rehab.

 

Prolotherapy is a fairly infant treatment, isn't it?

As I understand it, there are no completed double-blind controlled studies yet, are there? And what results there have been in previous studies are conflicting? Are you taking part in any of the current studies?

You say you've had results from prolotherapy. What kind of results have you had?

 

There are a few in progress, will be interesting to see the results.

 

First of all prolotherapy is complex technique:

After 7 years of pain i went to see 2 more chiropractors that got me worst, my ligament laxity in the lower back, upper back was terrible, each time i would bend down to pick up something my pelvic with get out of alignment, i could not even go for a walk with my girlfriend without feeling pain life was unbearable at this point and yes suicide crossed my mind. During my chiro adjustments i also developed ligament laxity in the hip joint.

Not getting into another chiro rant, i went to the sport doctor and they gave me exercises to do that where worthless causing more pain.

I found prolotherapy and after a year of solid treatment my pelvic ligaments where all stable again, but the hip and upper back remained to be treated successfully.

Problem with studies on prolotherapy is that you either find a good prolotherapist who will treat the whole region and use enough mixture to cause maximum inflammation for the repair to take place and get the ligament stronger, or like my current sport doctor who does half treatments and i am fed up with this.

The ligaments and tendons will get stronger it will take time but it works wonders. I was not able to lift weight before and now i can do moderate training, still not able to get back in MA but with the new sport doctor that i am seeing i am crossing my fingers.

I am not saying prolotherapy will work for everyone that would be a pretty big bold statement, but it as worked for me, true trial and errors, but what gets to me is that my current sport doctor i need to control my treatment, actually watch how much dextrose he is using to get the inflammation, most going, everything i tell him i am getting better he lowers the dosage and that ****es me off.

Prolotherapy is all about inflammation, getting the ligaments and tendons to dry out to produce more collagen and fibroblast by the body to heal itself, by doing so little by little the ligaments and tendons grow stronger and the bones get back into alignment. But its all about dosage CC and covering the whole part that as to be treated, like the lower back, upper back and for me the hip joint.

My case is very different then anyone else, i have been injured for 9 years, and i saw around 8 chiros in that time, massage therapist, physio, ostopaths and more, some of them might have gotten me worst, i mean after a chiro adjustment you feel pain for 3 days that is simply not normal.

They say 4-6 treatments for complete recovery, but in my case i don't like i might have been treated properly, if the full region would have been treated i might be 100%, there is sadly a lost of confidence in my part with my medical doctor plus is price for consultation seem to go up each time, 5$ per minute and this is 90$ usually per consultation plus the injections. Why did the cost go from 50-70-90$ and i told him last time that the time spend in is office is the same, but he stalls and tries to speak to me about anything else to get more money at least that is what i feel is going on right now.

For prolo well if you are interested give it a try, if you have laxed ligaments it will help for sure to strengthen them, if you have seen everyone there is to see for pain management and it failed then prolotherapy might be right up your allay.


Personal note a women tried to discourage me before i went to prolotherapy the first time, she brought up some studies that it was useless, i am glad i went because even if i would stop my treatments now my quality of life is much better.

Hope this answers your questions about prolotherapy.

Results from prolo up to now:

My upper neck posture is a lot better

My pelvic and lower back do not hurt anymore

My hip does not snap as much as it did before

I can now live a normal life with mild pain and on some good days no pain at all.


Now future results that i would love to see:

Complete 100% pain free for all areas

The hip joint healed at 100% no more snapping

Posture for the upper back 100% better

And a return to a martial art before i reach 40, God i am now 38.......

 

Prolotherapy is also know as sclerosant therapy.. you inject a dextrose solution into the ligaments to have them become inflames, scar and tighten up again giving the joints better support than they previously had, Been about since the 60's I think and has been used to some degree of success.

The problem with any treatment is diagnosis and with back pain there are still huge levels of controversy regarding what is wrong in the first place.

Yannick another treatment that is interesting is the insertion of little joint jacks under the skin that are attached to the transverse processes to off load the discs and keep the joints from impacting which can be a problem for a certain class of patients.

Hope it all goes well!!

powchoy

 

@Yannick35 -
Out of curiosity who and when were you diagnosed with ligament laxity and what sort of process did they use to confirm this?

 

Simple they got way back on my back pain history, got an echographie of the lower back and an MRI was well. Usually when chiropratic adjustments don't hold and i mean i got close to 350 adjustments in the lower back and upper neck, my pelvic never stayed in place, i did physiotherapy, lower back strengthening exercises but nothing ever worked.

Prolotherapy strengthen my right side which was where the pain was and the weakest side.

It was either surgery not even sure if that excise to lower back ligaments or prolotherapy.

Hope this helps

powchoy my lower back as no more compression on it, prolo did a wonderful job to fix that, and my pelvic is stable, i also have an inversion table that i use here and there but even then i don't feel the need to use it anymore.

 

So to be clear yannick this is you now dumping another specialist you were singing the praises of less than a week ago in another thread and moving on to someone new who offers a very similar version of the same unproven treatment? This all sounds eerily familiar. I'm betting less than 6 months till the prolotherapy = useless rip off thread appears.

 

You really dont get it right, i am not ripping on this doctor, he was great and got me where i am today, thanks to him i can now live a partial pain free life, so no in 6 monts you are not going to hear another rant about prolotherapy, i have not given up on the treatment, but with all your mighty intelligence Ckava if you had the chance to save up to 100$ each session that i have to pay with my current sport medecine a part from the injections that i pay anywhere between 50-75$ what would you do, if you found another sport doctor, you spoke to people who saw him and you find out that insurance covers the session, allowing me to save anywhere from 75-100$ per treatment. remember that my current doctor is in the private industry he charges 5$ per minute.

So doesn't it make sense to go see another specialist and save that much money, maybe if i was a multi millionaire i would not mind spending all that money but having an average salary i cannot continue paying that much for treatments.

Of course you guys had a bit to do about it too and made me realize that at some point with is NDE thinking and book that he refered me too, i sort of lost confidence in him.

Again i will never rant on what you actually think is an unproven therapy as fantastique as prolo, and why do i even bother replying to you anyways..........

 

I've actually been avoiding these topics about back pain and stuff for awhile, but I've finally decided to dive in.

A few years ago I smashed my back up really really badly. Tore all the muscle and tissue between my hips and my lower ribcage, compressed my spine a fair bit, managed to grind the bones pretty badly and ended up with, among other things- hypoxia(sp) in the lower spine, enough trapped nerves to make a pregnant woman wince, a mass of internal scar tissue that one one was quite sure where to start with and the inability to maintain one posture (other than flat on my back) for more than 30-40 min without painkillers.

Years later (6 years) I still get dull aches in my lower back, I still have to fight to get my posture back through the pain as the internal scarring rips and heals more correctly (apparently this is an ongoing process) but its much better than it was.

Anyway, the reason for posting is this - I had an extensive (and painful) course of physiotherapy to correct the problems, mixed in with some work from a chiropractor. Oh and ongoing consultations with doctors. The idea behind the treatment Yannick is describing sounds outright dangerous from the information I was give. I'm sure inflamming scar tissue does provide extra support, but it won't actually fix the problem. You have to REMOVE the inflammation to allow the tissue to reknit as closely as possible to its original shape. Inflamming the area does not allow this to happen. When I first damaged my back I was on a heavy course of anti-inflammitory pills and gels for exactly this reason.Most people with severe back pain like that don't actually ever get completely better because the pain of correction can be son intense that you give up and find less perminant but more comforting solutions. I would guess that Yannick will require that treatment every day for the rest of his life, while I on the other hand will (and to a degree already have) got the FULL use of my spine back, and am able to run again and train properly.

Just my thoughts on the issue.

 

Hmm. No thanks, not yet. If I were in seriously debilitating pain, I can see I might try just about anything to fix it, but the fact that this treatment is so experimental - thus far - is a major cause for concern, to me.

AFAIK, there are no ongoing studies currently focused on using prolotherapy to treat back pain. Can I ask why this doesn't worry you Yannick?

The only results regarding lower back pain and prolotherapy are ambiguous at best.

Can I enquire as to your lack of concern that there has been so little research into this treatment?

I am really pleased that you're having good results from this treatment, but doesn't it bother you at all how expensive it is for a technique that is unproven and hitherto improperly and incompletely tested?

 

Not so young a treatment.

Postgrad Med. 1960 Feb;27:214-9.
Prolotherapy in whiplash and low back pain.

HACKETT GS.

PMID: 13830709 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


The problem is as always, that because of diagnostic difficulties, studies on low back pain often compare apples with oranges. There have been positive studies but like everything else the success depends on the condition, the patient population and many other factors. Not saying that this stuff is the answer but don't write it off too quickly.

Br J Sports Med. 2010 Feb;44(2):100-4. Epub 2008 Apr 9.
The use of prolotherapy in the sacroiliac joint.

Cusi M, Saunders J, Hungerford B, Wisbey-Roth T, Lucas P, Wilson S.

University of Notre Dame, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. manuel.cusi@gmail.com
Abstract

OBJECTIVE: In this study the effectiveness of prolotherapy in the treatment of deficient load transfer of the sacroiliac joint (SIJ) was determined.

DESIGN: A prospective descriptive study.

SETTING: Authors' private practice.

PARTICIPANTS: 25 patients who consented to treatment and attended for at least one follow-up visit and assessment. STUDY PERIOD: From April 2004 to July 2007.

INTERVENTION: Three injections of hypertonic dextrose solution into the dorsal interosseous ligament of the affected SIJ, under CT control, 6 weeks apart.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale, Roland-Morris 24, Roland-Morris 24 Multiform questionnaires and clinical examination by two authors independently.

RESULTS: All patients included in this study attended at least one follow-up visit at 3, 12 or 24 months.. The number of patients at follow-up decreased at 12 and 24 months. Functional questionnaires demonstrated significant improvements for those followed-up at 3, 12 and 24 months (p<0.05). Clinical scores showed significant improvement from commencement to 3, 12 and 24 months (p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: This descriptive study of prolotherapy in private practice has shown positive clinical outcomes for the 76% of patients who attended the 3-month follow-up visit (76% at 12 months and 32% at 24 months). Similar results were found in the questionnaires (Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale, Roland-Morris 24 and Roland-Morris 24 Multiform questionnaires) at 3, 12 and 24 months.

powchoy

 

but

The thing that always muddles things is that just because a theory or treatment helps does not mean that it is correct. Pain does not require inflammation nor do tissues necessarily stay inflamed once they heal. Any bjj or judo person can show you that simple tension can cause excruciating pain.

With rugby players when we stitch up a wound we expect the inflammatory state to last a few days and then tissue repair starts. They can start stretching after a few days and are usually able to play again without risk of tearing the wound again with in 10-14 days.

There are a number of models to explain why pain stays and causes difficulties and I think that although there may be some occasions where inflammation is a factor it is much less than people expect. Sometimes I think that people fail to realise that the model your practitioner follows may not be the only one that could be correct.

As far as injecting to cause an inflammatory reaction goes, if, as expected the inflammation resolves within the expected 2 week time period then it would not be expected to be a risk to the patient.

I do know Orthopaedic Medicine doctors who have used this technique with good success. This is not a blanket recommendation, just I am just trying to point out why some people follow this method.

powchoy

 

powchoy you are right prolo is quit old treatment but very hard to find someone who practice it.

I agree with your reply prolo is not for everyone, for me it was the last resort, for someone else it might not be the same. Prolo is something you kind of try when all else fails and you don't have a serious injury to the spine, even then they can help relieve the pain from a hernia by strengthening the ligaments around the vertebrae and creating space in between. When properly done that is, i spoke to a guy not long ago that was an avid bodybuilder but had to stop training because of a thoracic hernia between T7 and T8, he said that prolo was a miracle it avoided him going under the knife and he was back in training in no time. This is yet another reason why i have changed sport doctor, because the one i am going to see is the one who successfully treated this guy.

Estrix, i will take the time to read your post and try to help you out, i have gained a lot of knowledge in the past 9 years on back pain and have seen a lot of so called specialist.

Again not sure if prolotherapy could help with your pain.

 

And here is my reply, how would you feel if your life was over at 30...... how would you feel having chronic pain day in and day out, how would you feel as the years pass by being a very active person before, seeing yourself get out of shape, seeing the years pass by, the pain remains, then suddenly you start feeling suicidal, and actually try to take away your own life because,,, the life you are living is just not worth it anymore..... how would YOU feel.

Now tell me when all else fails would you not have taken a chance, when nothing else works, you put your confidence into so called back pain specialist and they failed you each and every time, you end up in a sea of information, and you end up so mixed up and wondering why since my spine is perfectly align do the pain come back?

I don't give a flying ... about scientific studies, and if you where at the bottom of your life, you would see that at some point if you need to choose between money and pain free, you would choose the pain free every time.

That kind of ****es me off because most people who comment don't have pain, they don't live with chronic pain and they don't know what it is to get up from bed each day with tension and pain. They get a bit of sorness here and there that goes away, and after that its ok. Worst is that its people like that who tell you that the pain is all in your head.........

 

I'd try every conventional treatment available, then I'd move onto alternative treatments and failing that, I'd think up the most dramatic way of ending it.

But that's just me.

 

Please do some reseach on prolothreapy to properly understand the process of inflammation and ligaments and tendons reconstruction. There are tones of prolotherapy websie Dr Hauser being the guru of it all. Your injury is far worst then mine, prolo might be able to help you but in your case i would consult with a real back pain specialist, not sure if surgery would be required in your case. I hurt just reading you post. The inflammation process from the teatment will be effective for 2-3 days allowing the structure to get stronger, how would you explain that my pelvic that kept getting out of alignement got stronger and stop doing that after 6 monhts of prolothrapy, i can feel the ligament stronger then before.

Has for having the treatment all my life well its been 2 years but i am now able to train and enjoy a normal life, still nagging pains and cracking vertebrae but i am very positive on the new sport doctor i am going to see, i have heard many good things about him and spoken to many about is prolo treatments. Of course that anyone you speak to worst if they are chiros (they will always tell you that other profession dealing with pain are crap and that only chiropractic is best, been there done that.) also chiro are the cause of my laxity getting a lot worst, went to see 2 of them for 2 years and got adjusted 3 times per week do the math and tell me that they did not get me worst. Prolo as to work and fix that on top of an 8 years of pain. Still like i said and to avoid any argument to each is own, i strongly beleive in the power of prolotherapy yet most people who have not tried it or taken the time to read about the treatment will knock it off, just because once again science as not proven its effectivess. But like i said to each is own.

I am really excited to go see this new sport doctor and a new pain management clinic, not being under the stress of a 5$ per minute timer i will be able to get proper examination, have a whole hour with the sport doctor to talk about my pain and have someone that actually listens to me. I am quit sad to say that my old sport doctor tough he did good was almost always confused, i had to take my treatment in hand and tell him how much to inject and where to inject it even then proper treatment of the full painful structure never happened, it was always a need to repeat with him, even then not feeling like my treatment was important for him. Telling me that a big person like me 230 pounds at the time i should be injected with proper solution meaning sodium moruate cod liver oil, so i said good lets do this, then turnig around and telling me that he does not use this product but dextrose will do and giving me only 2cc of it. To think of this i am quit sad that it turned out that way, still when you are the only dog in town, and the only one giving the treatment you have all the leverage in the world to do what you want, paticent cant quite you are the only game in town. Yes Ckava i did have to rant maybe one day you will understand science a part, feels really good, when you finally see the light.

I am not knocking my old sport doctor but he was so expensive, and in the end was not giving me proper treatment.

what i was told is that when you injure youreslf the body tries to repair the injury for 6 weeks then it gives up.

Prolotherapy as its limit for sure but for me the inflammation is still there, the ligaments and tenods did get stronger, but true trials and errors, incorect dosage and a sport doctor who was mixed up at some point and did not listen to my pain, i wasted sadly time once more on my treatment. It was an endless need to repeat over and over again what my pain was, getting fewer injection into the painful region and treating ligaments once at a time, this is not the proper way to treat someone with prolotherapy.

You need to inject everywhere in the problem region, cover the whole thing because a ligament and tendon that does not hurt, my be weak and start hurting after the problem tendons and ligaments start to get stronger, exactly what is happening with my hip, yet once more my other sport doctor failed to treat the whole region and since i told him once more that i was doing good he lowered the dosage of the injection, which cause less inflammation and defeats the purpose of the whole treatment.

 

There is a new medecine that popped out a few years ago called conservative medicine, prolotherapy is part of the treatment used but is not the only treatment used.

Conservative medecine is built on a good diet, eliminating extra pounds that when you get older will eventually put pressure on the spine and joints, rebuilding ones immune system. Usually the sport doctor that practice conservative medecine will have access to all the required testing, MRI, Scans, xrays, will also have contacts in other fields of expertise. The clinic will have the latest equipement to make sure that everyone can benefit froma speedy recovery, the spine force machine , infra red sauna, massage therapist, osteopath, sport physiotherapy and more.

The clinic i am going to now as all of this, and the price will be a lot cheaper then the other clinic. The most important thing is to find a sport doctor that will listen to your pain, figure out what best treatment to get you where you want to be, of course this will require some test, but all of then are usually covered by your insurance, if you have any, x rays are the first test prescirbe to find out of arthritis could cause the pain and if the spine is in perfect alignement. An MRI test could be next if an echographie cannot find any cause for pain. After this an your evalution you will be refered to which treatment will work best for you, sport medecine and conservative medecine will also have access to an impressive database of doctors that perform surgery, the very last resort. But for most people its quit rare they surgery will be the best option.

 

This is exactly what I meant when I described the technique as being improperly tested.

They were treating whiplash and lower back pain over a period of 3 - 24months. I'm no medical expert, but 2 years is a good long time to get over whiplash, and there was no control, nothing to prevent co-intervention, no placebo, it wasn't randomised, not even blind, let alone double-blind, and the results relied upon the description of the patient, and whether he turned up for subsequent sessions. Incidentally, 32% of 25 is 8. That's the number of people who turned up to fill in the questionnaire at 24 months.

It could have been reiki or acupuncture or drinking hot tea and these results might have been the same. How can you tell otherwise? There's no base-line for comparison.

I know prolotherapy has been in use (albeit, as Yannick says, to a very limited extent) for about 50 years, but a 'therapy' as little tested as this in a clinically controlled environment is still pretty much in its infancy.

 

Hmm. You seem to infer some kind of judgement from my questioning. I thought I'd made it clear that I might have taken similar steps in your position (I have no way of knowing), and I was only enquiring as to whether you were concerned about the lack of research into the treatment, despite the positive results you were personally attaining.

I certainly did not tell you that the pain was all in your head.

Your post raises an even more interesting question for me. Yes, people who have not experienced such pain will not relate to your pain on a physical or emotional level; conversely, does their rational concern regarding the safety and efficacy of any treatment you are undergoing not afford you the opportunity to look at any result you get from your treatment from a perspective you are not otherwise able to see yourself?

I don't believe I am wrong to enquire as to whether you, personally, experience any concerns about the treatment you are receiving and its lack of clinical testing. You didn't really answer my questions; unless, of course, your response is that you would literally do anything to be out of pain, regardless of any potential risk to your health. Which is a perfectly legitimate response, of course.

I'm not judging. Just curious.