Yes, Prolotherapy Intentionally Encourages Inflammation
Doctors recommending anti-inflammatory medications is routine practice in American medicine. As the thinking goes, reducing inflammation minimizes pain. That it does. But could doing so actually prolong the issue at hand? Perhaps. That’s why prolotherapy does just the opposite. It intentionally encourages inflammation.
Encouraging inflammation doesn’t make sense in a modern world that seeks to eliminate discomfort at every turn. But inflammation is a natural biological process that serves a vital function in healing. By reducing inflammation artificially, we are sabotaging the body’s ability to heal itself.
It’s an Injection Therapy
The professionals at Lone Star Pain Medicine describe prolotherapy as an injection therapy. The Weatherford, TX clinic often recommends it for musculoskeletal and soft tissue injuries because muscles, tendons, and ligaments tend to demonstrate poor healing properties. Injuries involving such tissues are generally slow to heal. In many cases, they do not heal completely.
Prolotherapy relies on a liquid solution that includes a mild irritant – usually dextrose. The solution irritates the damaged tissue, thereby doing three things:
- Triggering inflammation.
- Attracting immune cells and growth factors.
- Encouraging tissue repair and collagen production.
The key to all of it is the inflammation. From a biological perspective, inflammation tells the brain that there is injured tissue in need of attention. The brain signals the immune system to respond. In turn, the immune system sends the necessary biological material to the injury site to begin the healing process.
Prolotherapy proponents say that the therapy essentially jump-starts the healing process by alerting the immune system to damaged tissue. Again, the soft tissues prolotherapy targets tend to not heal very quickly or thoroughly. Introducing inflammation is a way of continually keeping the immune system on track so that it heals the damage.
Conditions Treated With Prolotherapy
Nearly all prolotherapy treatments are aimed at injuries and diseases involving soft tissue. One of the more common conditions is chronic lower back pain. The pain is often the result of normal wear and tear on the lower back over long periods of time. It’s actually pretty common as people age.
Other conditions commonly treated with prolotherapy include:
- General joint pain.
- Osteoarthritis.
- Tendonitis.
- Plantar fasciitis.
- Rotator cuff injuries.
- Whiplash.
- Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ).
Prolotherapy is generally not recommended for autoimmune diseases that cause pain. Rheumatoid arthritis immediately comes to mind. Rheumatoid arthritis is the result of an overactive immune system that mistakenly attacks the joints. Increasing inflammation in the affected joints would only make matters worse.
A Simple Outpatient Procedure
One of the most attractive aspects of prolotherapy is the ease of delivery. It is a simple outpatient procedure that can be performed right in the doctor’s office. A doctor will generally start by examining the area in question to determine whether or not prolotherapy is appropriate. If it is, several therapy sessions will be scheduled.
A session begins with cleaning and numbing the injection site. Next, a needle is inserted and the dextrose solution delivered. In some cases, a doctor will use imaging equipment (like ultrasound) to guide the needle to the most strategic location.
Afterward, the patient may experience swelling and irritation at the injection site. There is always the risk of infection, but no more so than any other type of injection. It’s also worth noting that most patients need multiple injections to experience maximum relief.
While anti-inflammatory drugs are designed to reduce inflammation, prolotherapy purposely encourages it. The idea behind prolotherapy is to stimulate the body to do what it is supposed to do on its own. In light of that, inflammation is a natural and worthwhile biological process that prolotherapy takes advantage of.