Doctor Darrow’s Back Pain

Discussions from our Radio Show:

Doctor Darrow: I had Prolotherapy Injections on my back this morning, I fell down the stairs about six weeks ago and fell on the back of my ribs and the back of my pelvis and it sort of loosened everything up and it brought back an old injury that I had when I was a gymnast and fell on my tail bone. I had been healed with Prolotherapy once before and this is my third set of Prolotherapy injections for this injury and I am ready to go back out on the golf course.

I have had bad back pain that went down into my legs where I actually had to limp around for a couple of days and I never got an MRI. Now why didn’t I? Because I don’t believe in them, I believe that they are a useful backup but not as a primary diagnosis.

Now if I had a herniated disc, in my low back where the pain was, a surgeon would have told me to have a surgery to clean up the disc. But what we find in the people that come into our clinic is that they have sprains in the ligaments and this sprain can “pretend” that it is a herniated disc that the person has. Many people have disc problems, they have no pain, but if they get a sprain in their back and then they get and MRI, the doctors often think that it is the disc problem causing pain and they recommend surgery to fix it and it doesn’t work.

Dr. Darrow: There is pain that can come from the back down the legs, from the neck down the arms, that has absolutely nothing to do with the disc even if there is a disc problem. Most of the pain comes from trigger points, which was popularized by Dr. Travell and Simon who worked with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. What we find is that the trigger point injections work very adequately when some one has an acute or new injury, to help relax the muscles. But what we find down the road the problem becomes chronic.

The other night we had a caller who said she had 25 years of back pain healed by prolotherapy, and she said she was healed after only eight treatments. We hear that everyday, people getting better, and it makes us excited and enthusiastic about this pain treatment.

In Prolotherapy, what the dextrose does is start a very small inflammatory response in the body. Inflammation kicks up the immune system, the immune system brings up fibroblasts which are small cells that produce collagen. Wherever we put that small needle, we will be stimulating collagen growth (Studies have shown ligaments actually get 50% thicker and their strength becomes 200-400% stronger.) Typically a person needs to get injected two to four times to show improvement, and if it is a really bad injury, we may have to inject up to eight times over a period of a couple of months as it does take collagen a couple of months to grow.

Prolotherapy helped me personally after numerous chronic injuries and a failed surgery. It is a valuable weapon that can help people with chronic pain.