An injury or degenerative condition can sometimes cause ligaments and tendons to tear apart, leading to pain and weakness in your joints. These connective tissues can also stretch, making your joints unstable and irritated.
This is a phenomenon that many athletes are familiar with, but it can happen to anyone. Prolotherapy is one alternative treatment option that can help.
Sports Injuries, Overuse, and Other Painful Causes
For seasoned runners, IT band syndrome can be a constant concern. This occurs when the iliotibial band in the thigh becomes tight and rubs against the femur. And all tennis players have probably heard about tennis elbow, when the tissue connecting the elbow and forearm becomes irritated from overuse.
Even if you’re not an athlete, you may experience painful or weakened joints when you overextend yourself or develop a condition like arthritis or degenerative disc disease. Years of wear and tear on your body can take its toll on your joints and connective tissue—but it doesn’t have to slow you down for long.
Prolotherapy for Joint Conditions
Prolotherapy is an alternative, injection-based form of treatment that grows new tissue in injured or worn-down places. It harnesses the body’s natural healing capabilities to reconnect torn ligaments and stabilize stretched or weakened tissue. As a result, the patient’s pain can subside and their joints can become strong again.
Here’s how prolotherapy works. Your physician injects a safe solution into the site of your injury which “tricks” your body into thinking it needs to repair that area. Your body then starts growing new tissue in the injection site, repairing torn ligaments and tendons and strengthening tissues that are worn-down or over-extended. Your doctor will typically repeat this treatment four to six times, at an interval of three to six weeks, until the injury has healed.
Prolotherapy can treat conditions like degenerative disc disease, joint instability or dysfunction, and osteoarthritis. It can also help relieve shoulder pain, elbow pain, hand or wrist pain, neck pain, knee pain, ankle pain, and foot pain. Common injuries treated with prolotherapy include rotator cuff tears, golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow, and IT band syndrome.
Of course, not every treatment works for everyone. Whether or not prolotherapy can successfully care for your injury depends on factors like your overall health and history of injury. Before administering treatment, your physician will probably look at your medical history to determine how effective prolotherapy may be for you. When the right factors are there, prolotherapy has a very high success rate.
At the Spine & Joint Center, we offer prolotherapy and a number of other injection-based treatments for weakened or injured joints. Our minimally invasive, state-of-the-art procedures have proven effective for many patients, helping them find long-lasting relief from pain and discomfort. Contact us today to find out if prolotherapy can help your joints start healing.