Common Questions About Prolotherapy
If you suffer from sports injuries, or chronic pain in your knees and joints, then there is a potential treatment that can help dramatically.
Prolotherapy is a non-surgical option for joint pain that is getting more and more attention due the effectiveness of the results.
How Does Prolotherapy Work?
Prolotherapy is the process of using Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is extracted and separated from your blood, then it’s used to heal and repair damaged tissue.
Sometimes known as Non-Surgical Ligament, Tendon Reconstruction, or Regenerative Joint Injection, it is a recognized orthopedic procedure that stimulates the body’s healing processes to strengthen and repair injured and painful joints and connective tissue.
Prolotherapy uses the body’s own PRP to relieve joint pain and discomfort. It does this by stimulating the body’s own ability to repair and rebuild injured tissue with the help of growth factors found in platelets.
How Long Does Prolotherapy Treatment Take?
Each person’s body is different, and this means the process takes a unique amount of time.
Typically, treatment takes between 3 to 6 treatments to help stabilize the joint and relieve the pain. However, for some people, it may only take one treatment before there is some relief.
The process allows time for the healing to happen, so each treatment is scheduled 3-4 weeks apart.
What Are Side-Affects of Prolotherapy?
The only risk of prolotherapy is pain caused from the injection. Some patients report a small amount of pain, a sense of numbness at the injection site at the time of injections. Otherwise the treatment is relatively risk free.
If a person is taking anti-inflammatory medication, your doctor will likely advise you to stop taking it three days before the procedure. Continuing to take anti-inflammatory medication during prolotherapy may prevent the procedure from working effectively.
On the day of the prolotherapy treatments, it is important that a person eats well. Doctors will typically recommend that the person undergoing prolotherapy eats a protein-rich meal beforehand.