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ELBOW PAIN
THE QUESTION OF
PROLOTHERAPY
AND OVERUSE SYNDROME AMONG COMPUTER USERS
Dr. Darrow:
That is a great question, we have found an epidemic of people who are
having repetitive use syndromes of their fingers, wrists 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. |
