What Is Prolotherapy?
Prolotherapy is a treatment designed to stimulate healing of the supportive structures around the joints. Guided by ultrasound, a mild dextrose solution is injected into tendons and ligaments to encourage repair of damaged tissue. It is these connective and supportive structures that are causing the pain. The result is the strengthening of the support system around the bones and joints.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) now recognizes that one of the causes of arthritis pain is not the bones themselves, but the looseness of the supporting structures, which causes too much motion, thereby producing the pain.
Prolotherapy is short for “proliferation therapy”. It works by gently inflaming the tendons and ligaments, thereby allowing the patient’s own body to repair and create more healthy tissue in areas where it has become weakened and/or damaged.
Sometimes one treatment is enough … often, multiple treatments are necessary, depending on the severity of the problem and the length of time it has been troubling the patient.
Inflammation is the first phase of healing. In this phase, which begins with the injections and can continue for four or five days, cells are irritated and disrupted, releasing natural chemicals that draw healing cells to the area.
Dr. Gloria Tucker teaching prolotherapy to other physicians
The second healing phase is the granulation phase, which lasts six to ten days. In this phase, there is an increase in blood supply to the area, bringing curative cytokine proteins to the treated area. The third phase of the healing is the remodeling phase, where collagen fibers are generated through the secretion of healing nutrients by the body’s immune system. The degeneration is now healed and so the fibers are shorter and stronger. This returns the joint to its natural integrity. In short, once have caused very controlled damage to the treated area, the body takes over and heals itself.
PRP is filled with growth factors, and although it can be a little more uncomfortable, it produces even stronger results.