Elbow Pain

THE QUESTION OF PROLOTHERAPY AND OVERUSE SYNDROME AMONG COMPUTER USERS

Doctor Darrow: That is a great question, we have found an epidemic of people who are having repetitive use syndromes of their fingers, wrist and elbows, shoulders, sometimes all of that from computer use. We always talk about the proper ergonomics about the proper hand placement around different equipment, the proper distance of the chair to the equipment, the type of chair, etc.

In the office, there are people who are on the computer all day long, they do not have a chance. Doing anything repetitively, they are going to get an overuse syndrome. I see patients come into our office (for Prolotherapy) sometimes with their arm tucked around their abdomen. They are afraid to touch anything with it because they hurt so bad.

One of the greatest things to watch is to do some prolotherapy into the area and seeing the tissue that has been worn down, regrow.

The thing that is so unique about this is people are always coming in and telling me, I am already inflamed, why do you want to inflame me anymore and make it worse? And Prolotherapy actually does this, it actually re-inflames the area, brings up more inflammation in a very short period of time, usually 24 hours, which will bring more blood supply to the area, and these fibroblasts and chondroblasts (immune system cells) that actually help regrow tissue. It is the chronic low level inflammation that hurts and to get over it we have to increase the inflammation a little bit. The body’s natural healing response is inflammation. Prolotherapy has helped so many people with computer overuse syndromes, not just computer over use, we have musicians and athletes who also get overuse syndrome.
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TENNIS ELBOW AS AN OVERUSE SYNDROME

Dr. Darrow: Tennis Elbow for the most part is an overuse syndrome, it occurs for the most part because of the backhand is not performed correctly. That is to keep the elbow more in an extended position, those beginners or players who do not have proper technique down, will bend the elbow when they are ready to hit the ball and then they will straighten it out. This causes quite a bit of overuse strain.

What we do is inject around the elbow and we are actually thickening up the tendon that attaches to the bone. There was a study done before and after Prolotherapy in the ligaments of the low back which showed a 50% growth of the ligament itself and a 200-400% strength growth. So that is what we are doing, growing more tissue, strengthening the area.

How would you compare this to Arthroscopic surgery?

Dr. Darrow: My way of thinking is that it is a very invasive technique, even though it is much less evasive than cutting the area open with a knife, but at the same time, you are typically poking two or three holes the size of a pencil into the tissue, and creating an awful lot of destruction by just entering the area. And I was one of the poor unfortunate souls that had arthroscopic surgery on my shoulder when I was in medical school. My arm blew up like a balloon and it took about a year for that shoulder to calm down enough to get back the level of pain it was at before the surgery. I later learned about Prolotherapy, injected myself in the shoulder and it healed right up.

HOW MANY PROLOTHERAPY TREATMENTS FOR COMPUTER OR TENNIS ELBOW OVERUSE?

Dr. Darrow: For the pain the caller has the “lateral epicondylitis” or tennis elbow, pain around the outside of the elbow, typically Prolotherapy will take 4-5 sessions to clean that up. Now if you use the computer a lot, and this action caused the pain in the first place, it will cause it again if you are not careful. Find equipment that is ergonomically suited for you.