Prolotherapy: The Miracle Treatment You’ve Never Heard Of

June 17, 2009 by Bill.

Over the years, the right side of my neck has become very sore. I’m not actually sure why: probably a combination of factors such as leaning over to look into computer screens for years and years, improper posture when weightlifting, excessive chiropractic treatments, maybe even too much ibuprofen.

At any rate, during the last couple of years I had gotten to the point where I was experiencing tremendously bad headaches, manifesting themselves either at the top of my head, or at the base of my skull, where the muscles attach, often resulting in a tight headache band that wrapped my entire head in pain. The headaches were almost always on the right-hand side, seldom the left. Some of my headaches were so debilitating my toes quaked, and I could not perform any sort of movement without excruciating pain. Some were so terrible I spent the night fighting them and had to call in sick at work the following day. My headaches were so bad I was resorting to prayer: “Please God, take this headache away from me!”

Thanks to a previous injury–a minor back sprain–I had discovered ibuprofen, which my doctor at the time called a “miracle drug.” So to partially counteract my headaches, I would take ibuprofen at the least little sign of a headache coming on. I did not know ibuprofen is good for taking down inflammation and swelling. I just knew that it worked on my headaches. One of my doctors at Kaiser Permanente told me I could take three ibuprofen (200mg tabs) every six hours. That’s what I did.

I also found that pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) was also helpful. One doctor prescribed Imatrix for me–a well-known and popular migraine headache drug–but it did not even faze my headaches. When I came down with a barn-burner of a headache, I would take aspirin, ibuprofen, the Walgreens clone of Sudafed, and anything else I thought would work. After the headache had subsided (several hours later) I would have a stubborn residual ache, and would just generally feel like crap for a complete day following.

Interestingly, I also noted that my headaches would often come around when there was a barometric pressure change, from high to low. You would think that the opposite would be the case, that I’d get headaches when a high pressure system came bearing down on me. But no, my headaches came when high pressure was moving out and the low was coming in. Doesn’t make sense from a physics point of view, but that is the way it seems to happen. I’ve never noticed if my headaches come on when there isn’t anything unusual happening weather-wise, so I can’t comment.

I do know that excess wine (especially wine with sulphides in them) and beer can bring them on. Because of that and other reasons, I’ve really cut back on alcohol consumption, typically only drinking a glass of wine, or a beer on the weekends.

Because the headaches were getting worse, I was starting to become afraid that I had brain tumors or other equally horrible disease. So I went to the Kaiser Permanente doctor, explained my case and he prescribed an MRI and a CAT scan of my neck and head. The CAT scan revealed that I had arthritis in my neck, some bone spurs and a slight bulge between C2 and C3 (the upper bones in your vertebrae). My doctor pooh-poohed the notion of brain tumors.

The conversation then went to topics like seeing a physical therapist, taking a muscle relaxant (Flexiril) and a mild narcotic (Tramodol) and if things didn’t get better, perhaps even paying a visit to the neurologist.

One visit to the physical therapist told me I wouldn’t get anywhere with those people. We talked about things like proper workplace ergonomics and other stuff to which I’d already been paying attention. The therapist also performed an ultrasound on the area, which felt wonderful but did nothing for the pain. She noted that I tended to lean slightly to the right. While I took away some good stretching exercises, I knew for sure my healing wasn’t going to come about by PT.

It’s important to note that years earlier I had started visiting a chiropractor regularly for the pain, and continued visiting him on a semi-monthly basis.

Because my doctor wanted me to try a full course of PT before he’d refer me to the neuro folks, I felt I was out of options with respect to Kaiser. And besides, I wasn’t sure how crazy I was to have neurosurgeons fusing neck vertebrae. Sounds dangerous. I would much prefer a naturopathic approach if possible.

So I tried accupuncture, which did truly help, but did not completely alleviate the pain. I’m now a big believer in accupuncture’s powers and will continue to see an accupuncturist when I feel they are the best choice for what ails me.

Headaches unabated, in desperation I turned to the web. I began an Internet search: surely there must be others out there who were having the same kinds of problems. And there were.

In my research I found out about a type of treatment called prolotherapy. Here’s the idea: You experience some kind of injury, then begin to suffer chronic pain as a result. The reason for the pain has to do with your muscles and ligaments not being able to adequately repair themselves. It’s not a bone problem, it’s a muscle problem. Which is why chiropractic visits helped some, because an adjustment would take some of the pressure off of the muscles, giving them a chance to recover somewhat. But, as soon as my bones began working their way out of adjustment, the muscles would again become the ones who paid the ticket. The trick was in fixing the muscles, not the bones.

Upon visiting my prolotherapy doctor (Dr. Jo Douglas)  I learned that my top of head and neck headaches were related. The pain would start in my neck, then traverse its way up a path to the top of my head. In 15 seconds she opened a prolotherapy book she had and turned to the drawings of various pathways like this in the human body, showing me the neck/top of head relationship. It was very easy to see, even from a layperson’s perspective, that there was a causal relationship. She asked if I occasionally had an ache in my eye socket, which I did.

She felt the muscles and ligaments in my shoulders and neck, and was quickly able to put her finger on the exact spot where I was feeling the most pain. If she pushed on it and then turned my head, I could hear a clicking sound. She noted that this was not a healthy situation. She showed me on a skeleton she had in the office how the bones, joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments connect, how chiropractors perform their adjustment, and why prolotherapy would help me with my pain.

She then went on to explain what prolotherapy is and how it works. The idea is very straightforward: Your muscles, ligaments and tendons can become worn down due to an injury and never getting a chance to properly heal. But the miracle of prolotherapy is that if you inject a liquid into the injured tissue, it will be “like sending it to the gym for a rigorous three-hour workout” (in Dr. Douglas’s words). Over the course of 3 - 6 treatments, these injections give the tissue a chance to regenerate and build back up.  She uses a naturopathic solution manufactured in Italy which, I believe, consists primarily of dextrose and glycerin (look here for more detailed information).

The science behind prolotherapy is this: If inflammation is purposely introduced to the offending area, this causes regeneration and healing. That’s why ibuprofen isn’t allowed during prolotherapy, because it cuts down on inflammation, precisely the thing I wanted happening during my healing.

Here’s the thing: The procedure hurts.  Though the doctor rubbed my skin with a local anasthetic, she actually had to insert the needle into my muscle/ligament/tendon and inject the solution in there. And, she had to do it in several places, so there were several sticks. So it’s not a walk in the park. But it’s not that bad either. No pain, no gain, as they say.

Repeat procedures must be spaced out several weeks so the healing has a chance to work. During that time, I was not allowed to have any ibuprofen - only Tylenol, aspirin, or Tramadol. (Side note: Evidently, there’s more to the ibuprofen story than we’re being told, as Dr. Douglas’s office was pretty solid on staying off it for good. Sounds to me like ibuprofen may not be the best thing in the world to use for fighting pain. So now I’m curious about that and will have to do some more research.)

Here’s the great news: Prolotherapy works! After going through four treatments, I felt much better in my neck area. I was able to get up and move around without having to first resort to pain medications.  My headaches stopped, and I was able to sleep better. If I did experience a minor ache or pain, standard off the shelf medications like apirin and Tylenol would help.

The procedures are expensive ($400/session) and medical insurance typically does not cover them (go figure).

In between procedures, the doctor put me on a daily whey protein drink (which was yummy) and collagen I & II. I’ve since stopped the whey protein, but continue to take collagen tables twice a day.  Dr. Douglas is also quite intrigued with the role that amino acids play in keeping one’s body from aging. Though not by her recommendation, I’d begun taking L-Arginine and L-Ornithine supplements as a part of a cleanse I’ve been going through. When I asked her about them she said they were good, well-known amino acids, and evidence showed that they were best taken separately, as opposed to the combination tablets one can buy at Natural Grocers.

If you are suffering from chronic pain, and (short of becoming addicted to oxycodon) you’re quickly running out of options, I think prolotherapy is so worth the money. The procedures are expensive yes. But what price do you put on your happiness in life?

There’s a good story about the guy who invented Cortisone and the doctor who perfected prolotherapy both going to an AMA conference at the same time one year. Guess which therapy got the nod from the AMA? The one that causes pain and introduces inflammation to the muscle in order to permanently heal it? Doubtful! But that hasn’t stopped the AMA and pharmeceutical companies from venturing headlong into the practice of shooting Cortisone into people for short-term relief. The Journal of Prolotherapy recently published an article that discusses the findings that too many corticosteroid injections actually contribute to arthritis, which seems consistent anytime there is a story in which pharmeceutical companies are involved. Here’s an abstractof the article.

I’ve learned several lessons from this experience:

1) Don’t go to the chiropractor as often as I had been going. While I value the work chiropractors do, they can actually contribute to a muscle’s injury by working the skeletal structure around during an adjustment. It’s best to keep chiropractic treatments few and far between.

2) Slow way down on the use of ibuprofen, select other medications instead.

3)Trust my naturopathic instincts and do my research before going along willy-nilly with whatever an MD tells me. It’s not wise to trust everything a doctor says as the truth, partially because doctors, like everyone else, have natural biases, and partly because of the indoctrination by pharmeceutical companies which doctors routinely undergo.

One of the bigger players in the field of prolotherapy is Ross Hauser, who maintains several different web sites devoted to the subject, and was the author of the prolotherapy book mentioned above. Here’s the place to start when researching Dr. Hauser.

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