When I was in college in the early 1980s, I would run down the stairs, two at a time. I did it because it was fun, but one day, I missed a step and fell, injuring my ankle. It was badly sprained. I hobbled around on crutches for several weeks and my ankle healed with time.
Fast forward 30 years — as time had passed, I noticed that there was pain again in my ankle. I hadn’t done anything to re-injure it, but I had aged. I found myself hobbling around with pain and stiffness in my right ankle. I would have good and bad days, but it seemed that with time the bad days came more often than the good ones.
I started medical school in 2011 when I was in my 50s. I was fortunate to be assigned to shadow a doctor who did prolotherapy. I watched as he gave this treatment to several patients who were in pain. The patients who were coming back for second or third treatments all said that they had seen improvement in their pain.
So, I tried it. I asked for the prolotherapy injections in my right ankle. Guess what? The pain in my ankle decreased after the first treatment. After the second, I was out of pain. There was no longer any stiffness.
I decided that I had to learn how to do these treatments so that I could help other people regain a better quality of life. I studied under a doctor who is an expert for several years to learn how to administer prolotherapy injections.
Prolotherapy is a treatment that stimulates your body’s ability to heal, to strengthen, and repair injured and painful joints, ligaments, and tendons. It can help with musculoskeletal pain.
When ligaments and tendons are stretched and torn, the joint they are holding becomes destabilized and this destabilization can lead to pain. Prolotherapy injections are directed to these painful areas and they cause a mild inflammatory response. The body works to repair the area. It builds ligament and tendon fibers which help to strengthen the weakened structure. Additional treatments continue the process to allow the body to repair the area.
Prolotherapy can be used to treat pain in the neck, mid back, and low back, including sacroiliac joint instability. It can help with knee pain, meniscal tears, wrist, hand and finger pain, elbow and shoulder pain, foot pain and of course, ankle pain.
Prolotherapy can help with degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis. The treatment basically can be used to address musculoskeletal pain. Treatments are scheduled every three to six weeks and a patient generally gets four to six treatments.
The success of the treatments depends on the health of the patient and the injury that is being treated. Generally, studies have shown that treatments are 85 to 95 percent successful.
Are you in pain? Come into Mesa Naturopathic to see what can be done to help regain quality of life. Call and schedule your appointment today at (480) 306-8111. Check out our website at mesadr.com.