Do you suffer from stiff and painful joints? Creaking knees? Knotted shoulders? Back pain? Does the pain interfere with your daily activities at work and play? You are not alone. Statistics show that one in every six people has debilitating joint pain.
Our favourite drug is ibuprofen (Advil), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication that reduces pain. Many individuals have to pop a couple per day or every time they need to work or enjoy recreational activities. Ibuprofen is not a long-term solution, however, just temporary relief. There are more powerful drugs for escalated pain, but again they only control your pain and do little to address the underlying cause. Some sufferers undertake physiotherapy and massage, and in serious situations, surgery is considered.
Recently showcased on the TV program The Doctors‚ there is a new effective treatment for joint pain. It’s called prolotherapy or regenerative injection therapy that works by stimulating the body to repair the painful area by boosting the natural healing process. Treatment promotes the growth of new ligament and tendon tissue. It can be used to treat many different types of injuries including sprains, strains, bursitis, tendonitis, meniscal tears, and osteoarthritis. Any joint in the body can be treated successfully with prolotherapy regardless of when the injury happened, even if you’ve been suffering for 20 years.
The basic mechanism of prolotherapy is very simple. Dextrose (sugar) is injected into ligaments, tendons and joints. The injection also includes some B vitamins and an anesthetic, but the main ingredient is sugar. The treatment causes local inflammation. Creating more inflammation may sound counter productive, but this actually triggers and accelerates your body’s natural healing processes.
The doctor uses a fine needle to inject the sugar, and monitors your response to minimize any discomfort. When you compare the results you can have with prolotherapy to your current pain and suffering, any discomfort is minimal and short term, as most injections are completed within 15 minutes (up to 30 minutes for larger areas like the back).
After prolotherapy, ligaments and tendons are thicker and up to 40 per cent stronger in some cases. Treatment has the potential of being 100 percent effective at eliminating chronic pain. Patients who have been scheduled for hip and knee replacement, back or shoulder surgery have benefited sufficiently from prolotherapy that they didn’t need surgery. Dr. Ross Hauser, MD, one of North America’s foremost prolotherapy doctors, reports that of the last 28 knees that he injected, 26 avoided surgery. This is not the case with everyone, but if you could have a series of injections that might heal the problem and reduce or eliminate your pain within a few months, then isn’t it worth a try?
You’ll know within three to six treatments whether or not it is working.
For improved health, most doctors recommend reducing your sugar intake. But when it comes to joint pain, you need sugar, the injectable kind, and the sweet relief it can provide.
Dr. Denise De Monte is a naturopathic physician at De Monte Centre Natural Medicine in Vernon.
