Prolotherapy originated on the west coast of United States and is slowly moving here to New England. You’re finding more and more articles in newspapers about prolotherapy and there’s more and more research being done about prolotherapy. For over 25 years, the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine has been giving lectures about prolotherapy and teaching the techniques involved in treating their patients.

I think what happened originally is that most aches and pains were diagnosed as tendinitis – as an inflammatory process – and most doctors easily treated these tendons and tendinitis by giving cortisone injections and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories which temporarily eased the pain but after a few weeks the pain returned. This left some doctors like myself scratching their heads.

So when I went to the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine’s annual meeting, there were lectures on prolotherapy and I was taught there that the inflammatory process is actually a reparative process which has been known in modern medicine for a long time. And that for acute injuries and for chronic injuries anti-inflammatories are actually contraindicated.

Dr. Hackett developed a theory and practice of treating these injuries by actually causing a rejuvenation of the inflammatory process. This restarts the healing process and then gives a permanent solution to these aches and pains. Because once the tissue is repaired, the pain goes away.

Sports Injuries, Arthritis and General Pain Management

I was treating these injuries, many times with cortisone, and it was not successful. So I heard lectures on prolotherapy, I put that in the back of my mind but for patients that did not get better I started to use this technique. And to my surprise, I started to get very good results.

I’ve had better success rates with prolotherapy. Over 80 to 85% of the people that I’ve treated with prolotherapy have improved significantly. Some have become complete pain relief.

Prolotherapy effectiveness for ankles and feet and any joint of the body that is held together with ligaments where that can be damaged ligaments, for instance plantar fasciitis, prolotherapy is an excellent treatment.

As long as you’re a healthy human being, non-smoker and have no auto-immune problems, prolotherapy is 85% effective.

In the case of arthritis, the joint service is starting to deteriorate and prolotherapy can help rebuild that joint service and alleviate pain.