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Prolotherapy: How it Works and How it May be Able to Help You

Prolotherapy: How it Works and How it May be Able to Help You

Chronic pain can infiltrate every aspect of your life — from limiting your daily activities to keeping you up at night. Nearly 20% of American adults have chronic pain, and unfortunately, effective treatments are scarce.

Maybe you’ve tried pain relieving medications, physical therapy, or other treatments without relief. It’s easy to feel like you’re out of options, but if you have muscle or joint pain from an injury or a degenerative condition like arthritis, it’s time to learn more about a promising pain management technique: prolotherapy.

John Stavrakos, MS, MD, and our team at Heritage Regenerative Medicine specialize in pain treatment and pain elimination solutions, and we offer a range of alternative treatments to help you find the relief you’re seeking. Read on to learn how prolotherapy works and find out if it could be an option for you.

How prolotherapy works

Prolotherapy is a type of regenerative medicine that’s used to relieve chronic joint and musculoskeletal pain. The word itself comes from the Latin -proli, “to regenerate.”

Prolotherapy works by stimulating your body’s natural healing response. In prolotherapy, you receive a series of injections in and around an injured, damaged, or painful joint. The injections contain what is known as a proliferant solution that jump-starts your body’s healing process.

At Heritage Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Stavrakos uses injections that contain a blend of dextrose (sugar), saline (salt water), and Sarapin (a natural substance derived from the Pitcher Plant). The local inflammation that’s created at the injection site causes the body to send immune cells, an increased blood supply, and other restorative agents to the area.

Prolotherapy mimics injury at the injection site, and essentially accelerates your body’s healing response. This process can then help repair damaged tissue in muscles and joints over time, resulting in less pain.

When to consider prolotherapy

Since it’s nonsurgical, prolotherapy can often be included alongside other treatments, like physical therapy or chiropractic manipulation, to provide more complete pain relief and to limit the use of pain medications and bypass the need for surgery..

Prolotherapy is a customizable option that can offer pain relief for an enormous range of musculoskeletal conditions causing pain, injury, or dysfunction. If you’ve tried other treatments and you still have significant pain from your condition, talk to Dr. Stavrakos and our team to find out if prolotherapy could be right for you.

Dr. Stavrakos has been a prolotherapy specialist for many years, and he often recommends it to people experiencing joint pain from arthritis or injury, muscle pain, or other types of soft tissue pain. Prolotherapy may improve pain conditions affecting (but not limited to) the:

Along with addressing painful joints, prolotherapy may offer relief from chronic pain conditions like degenerative joint disease (including spinal pain) and fibromyalgia. By stabilizing the ligaments of the spine, prolotherapy can often reduce or eliminate conditions like cervical migraines or radicular pain (i.e. pain radiating down a limb caused by a pinched nerve).

If you choose prolotherapy, Dr. Stavrakos will develop a customized plan to meet your needs. 

As you progress through your prolotherapy treatments, your body works to rebuild healthier tissues in the injured area. Benefits can include increased strength, enhanced mobility, and reduced pain.

Ready to find out what prolotherapy could do for your chronic pain? Book a consultation with Dr. Stavrakos and our team. Request an appointment online now or call our Weddington, North Carolina, office at 704-368-4852. 

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