Prolotherapy is a series of injections that stimulates your body’s natural healing process to repair damaged ligaments and tendons. The therapy may help to strengthen joints and reduce pain from chronic overuse injuries. The procedure involves injecting a concentrated sugar water (hypertonic dextrose) into the injured area. The doctor will usually mark the injured area and sterilize it before inserting a needle to inject the solution. A numbing cream or solution is often used to decrease pain from the injection. A typical session includes 3 to 6 injections that are spaced a few weeks apart.
The main idea behind prolotherapy is that the injections cause a low-grade inflammation in the treated area, which triggers your immune system and other cells to rush to the affected tissue. Your body will then use those cells to create new collagen and connective tissue. This will then replace the damaged tissue, strengthening and stabilizing your joint.
In addition to the irritant solution, your doctor might add other ingredients to promote your body’s healing response. These include growth factors, which can activate your cells to synthesize protein that will eventually turn into new tissue and rebuild the damaged area. Your doctor might also include glucosamine, which can increase your cells’ ability to heal.
Some athletes and physically active Prolotherapy chicago people develop chronic overuse injuries in their muscles, joints and tendons. This is because dense tissues like ligaments and tendons have a high collagen fiber content but are limited in blood flow. These injuries can occur to runners, athletes in jumping and cutting sports, swimmers, tennis players, weight lifters and others. These injuries can lead to weakened and weakening of the connective tissue, which will then lose its strength and flexibility.
If other treatments have failed, your physician may recommend prolotherapy to relieve your pain. There is still a lot that experts don’t know about how prolotherapy works, but they do know that it appears to improve pain in some people. But it’s important to talk to your doctor before trying any new treatment. They might suggest other, more effective ways to reduce your pain that have better research behind them.
Your doctor might also warn you against prolotherapy, since it hasn’t been proven to be safe or effective for the long term. Some side effects can be mild, but others can be serious or even life-threatening. For example, you might have an allergic reaction to the zinc sulfate or the concentrated solution. Your doctor might recommend you try other treatment options with more research backing them up, such as exercise, stretching and physical therapy.
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