Prolotherapy

The practice of prolotherapy has been around since the 1950s and was initially used for the treatment of chronic low back pain. Over the past decade, with the advent of ultrasound guided injections, it’s scope of use has been expanded to treat a variety of conditions such as shoulder impingement and tennis elbow. It is a medical treatment most commonly used for the management of musculoskeletal conditions that have become more chronic or are slowly healing. Unlike steroid (cortisone) injections, which help to reduce inflammation/swelling and pain but can potentially weaken tissue over time, prolotherapy is used to stimulate the body’s reparative processes and can result in a temporary aggravation of symptoms.

Prolotherapy is a type of regenerative medicine which typically uses a combination of dextrose (sugar water) and saline (salt water) injected into tissue to elicit an immune response from the body at the sites of inflammation and pain. Experts believe that this treatment fools your body into thinking that there is an acute injury that it needs to send healing factors to repair. This process leads to improved circulation and the deposition of new collagen, a protein which fortifies the tissue supporting a joint or strengthens the tendon connection of muscle to bone. Several treatments might be required to obtain optimal results.