Prolotherapy
A new approach to injury treatment
Prolotherapy is a very effective treatment for most injuries and ongoing joint, tendon, ligament and muscle pain. The treatment involves a series of injections with a glucose solution, immediately under the skin with a very fine needle, targeting the source of the pain. It can offer a success rate of up to 90% for most conditions.
Dr John Lyftogt - GP Prolotherapist
MRNZCGP
• Specialises in the treatment of movement pain, musculoskeletal and sports injuries with Prolotherapy.
• Postgraduate training in Musculoskeletal Medicine, and trained in Prolotherapy since 2003.
Prolotherapy History
Classical Prolotherapy was developed in the 1940s by an American trauma surgeon Dr George Hackett, using injections of Sylnasol, a sclerosing agent commonly used at the time for shrinking varicose veins. He targeted ‘lax’ or ‘weak’ ligaments with these injections to make them stronger.
Hackett reasoned that if ‘weak’ ligaments were the cause of most joint and ligament pain, strengthening them would resolve the pain. He was certainly successful, publishing 16 articles and a textbook on this procedure, and claiming an 80% success rate for the treatment of low back pain as well as many other painful conditions.
A growing number of Prolotherapy studies over the last 40 years have indicated good to excellent results from this type of treatment, with doctors in the USA, Australia and elsewhere continuing to use glucose injections (now using more advanced glucose solutions) with no side effects for painful conditions affecting joints, ligaments and tendons.
With the advent of evidence-based medicine in the last 20 years, scientific research have become intensely demanding and financially well out of reach of most researchers, unless supported by large grants or the Pharmaceutical industry. As a result, it has been almost impossible to fund good high-level evidence research on Prolotherapy. But three researchers, Professor Michael Yelland from Australia and Professors David Rabago and K. Dean Reeves from the USA have bucked the trend with some excellent studies published recently.
Dr John Lyftogt has also published six level 4 studies in the Australasian Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine since 2005.
Prolotherapy Articles
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