Sep 21, 2006 9:51 pm US/Central
Prolotherapy Relieves Joint Pain From Within
by Dennis Douda
(WCCO)
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Because Prolotherapy uses dextrose injections, there isn't the reaction you might get from a harsher drug.
CBS
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Susan Millar says Prolotherapy has helped relieve her chronic knee pain.
CBS
Achy joints don't leave you with many options. Pain killers, surgery and physical therapy top the list. Although there is a new option -- rehabbing troubled knees from the inside out.
The procedure of Prolotherapy tricks joints into growing stronger from within. Susan Millar tried it after Cortisone shots proved too temporary.
Twenty years ago Millar's leg was shattered in a boating accident. Over the past year the injury has returned to haunt her with chronic pain. Millar said an MRI scan revealed a depressing sight.
"The bone is no longer lined up. I have arthritis. It's bone on bone," said Millar. "So I have to have a knee replacement, but I'm trying to prolong the inevitable."
Millar's solution was an unlikely solution of sugar water called Dextrose. Sports Medicine Specialist Dr. John Odom has been strategically injecting sites within and around her knee joint where the ligaments attach to bone. Odom explains that triggers an inflammatory or healing response.
"And then when the healing cells go to the area of injury it starts to rebuild that tissue," said Odom. "Whether it's ligament or connective tissue it starts to strengthen (the) once damaged or loosened tissue."
Variations of the procedure have been studied for decades but it is quickly gaining favor again. Numerous research trials on Prolotherapy draw conflicting conclusions, from showing clear effectiveness to no discernible benefit. However, Millar is sold on it.
"I'm a believer," she said recently in Odom's Minnetonka Clinic. "I can probably walk a mile now without pain. Steps are easier."
Because this is just sugar water there isn't the reaction you might get from a harsher drug. And yet, you're wondering how sugar water can cause such a dramatic transformation.
"That's part of the mystery about it. How can something so simple produce such great results? But we do see great results with glucose solution," said Odom.
In more challenging cases a fish oil compound may be injected instead of sugar water.
Odom says he's seen it work on virtually every joint, from elbows and knees to the neck and lower back. The average patient makes four to six visits to the doctor for injections before getting the results they're after.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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