PROLOTHERAPY BACK PAIN

Chronic Back Pain, Soap Star, Producer, Writer, Amy Gibson

I was told that I needed immediate surgery. To help with the pain I was given repeated epidural injections with steroids and told I would probably never be off Vicodin (a narcotic pain killer.)

Specialist after specialist told me that I should not even be walking  around, my discs could rupture at any time!

It could have been a scene from many of the scripts emmy-nominated actress Amy Gibson has read in her years on the “Young & The Restless”, “General Hospital”, and “Love of Life.”

A young beautiful woman is told by doctors that she has two herniated and two bulging discs and needs an operation immediately to prevent her from being confined to a wheel chair. The catch, they told her, is that the surgery is so risky that it in itself carries a 50-50% chance of causing enough damage to confine her to a wheelchair for life. Unfortunately for Amy this was not a script, this was the reality of a succession of sports injuries, car accidents and poor chiropractic care. 

Most Lower Back Pain Is From A Sprain Of The Sacroiliac and Iliolumbar Ligaments

In medical terminology, acute pain means, new pain, it does not refer to severity. "Chronic" is the term usually reserved for pain lasting longer than three months, often involving psychological (such as stress) as well as physical factors, or combinations of the two.

As with all types of pain, there are many possible factors causing or contributing to both the acute and chronic types of lower back pain. 

However, damage to the ligaments of the back is estimated to be responsible for up to 70% of all cases of lower back pain. In our clinic, I would estimate these causes to be a high as 95% of back pain. 

The chronic back pain patient typically experiences some type of trauma to the lower back that causes injury to the ilolumbar, sacroiliac, interspinous and supraspinous ligaments. 

This may cause some forward slippage of the fifth lumbar vertebra from the sacrum, which in turn causes excessive pressure on the vertebral disk. Fissures may occur in the disk (at the annulus fibrosis), and this exacerbates the degenerative disk problem. 

Amy's story of back pain started in 1993 when she injured her knee and tail bone in a water skiing accident. This incident was followed by a series of car accidents that further aggravated her condition.

I also played a lot of golf and tennis, something I guess some one with a bad back shouldn't do.

 After poor chiropractic treatment Amy was basically bedridden for over a year. 

Because of the imminent threat of rupture, the doctors kept pushing me towards the surgery. But the chance of poor surgical outcome was so high, I sought an alternative treatment. I decided on Prolotherapy.

"Failed back syndrome," is an official-sounding term to describe the pain of patients whose surgical attempts have failed to correct their back pain problem. The most common cause of failed back syndrome is poor judgment on the part of the physician. This poor judgment is based on surgery prescribed as a last resort—on a hope and a prayer—that it might alleviate the pain.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: PATIENT'S STORIES HEREIN, AND THE LANGUAGE USED, IS INTENDED TO INFORM AND EDUCATE. HOWEVER, IT DOES NOT IMPLY THAT YOU OR ANYONE ELSE WILL RECEIVE THE SAME OUTCOME. PROLOTHERAPY AND OTHER MODALITIES MENTIONED ARE MEDICAL TECHNIQUES THAT MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED MAINSTREAM. AS WITH ANY MEDICAL PROCEDURE, RESULTS WILL VARY AMONG INDIVIDUALS, AND THERE COULD BE PAIN OR SUBSTANTIAL RISKS INVOLVED. THESE CONCERNS SHOULD BE DISCUSSED WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER PRIOR TO ANY TREATMENT SO THAT YOU HAVE PROPER INFORMED CONSENT AND UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES TO HEALING.

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