Prolotherapy, also called regenerative injection therapy, is a way of injecting an irritant solution into a tendon or ligament in order to cause a reparative inflammatory reaction to help repair the tendon and relieve pain.

How long has prolotherapy been available in the United States?

Prolotherapy was first used by Dr. George S. Hackett, and it was introduced to the AMA (American Medical Association) in 1955. It has been used mostly on the west coast of United States and now it’s moving very steadily towards the East Coast. It’s been progressing over the last 60 or 70 years.

What are some of the most common uses for Prolotherapy?

Some of the common uses for prolotherapy are tennis elbow, groin strains, sacroiliac instability – which is a common cause of lower back pain – tendonitis of any kind, wrist, ankle, knees.

Can prolotherapy help plantar fasciitis?

Yes. I had a professional weightlifter who couldn’t do the strongman competitions anymore because he couldn’t pull a train or a truck because he had to use his feet. He came to me and got 3-4 prolotherapy injections and now he’s back in competition again.

What is the story about tendonitis?

There are a lot of misconceptions about tendonitis. Everyone thinks that tendonitis is an inflammatory process, but in reality over 90% of the diagnoses of tendonitis are actually a damaged tendon and there’s no inflammatory reaction going on. As a matter of fact, what prolotherapy does is try to create an inflammatory reaction to reignite it so that the healing process starts all over again. Classically, we treated these conditions with cortisone injections, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and such, usually what happens is you get better for a week or two and then the pain comes back again. That’s because the anti-inflammatories have only masked the injury and what’s really needed is to stop anti-inflammatories, treat it with prolotherapy and incite a new healing process, i.e. the inflammatory reaction, which will start the tendons to heal.