Top 10 Reasons
Patients Tell Me That They Come to
Caring Medical for Their Prolotherapy.

When I was applying for hospital privileges, as a new private practice M.D. in Oak Park Illinois, the medical staff chief sarcastically said to me "You don't want to be known just as a Prolotherapy doctor, do you?" I didn't answer him when he said this in 1993, but in my heart of hearts I knew I had joined Dr. Gustav Hemwall because I did want to be a full-time Prolotherapy doctor.

I have been fortunate to love what I do. I still enjoy injecting people. People (patients and their loved ones watching the procedure) sometimes comment that "I like my job too much!" But I tell them, "Do you want a doctor who loves giving shots, giving you your shots, or do you want a doctor who hates his job?" I think the doctor who loves his job will do a better job.

I have also been fortunate to have been able to do Prolotherapy pretty much full time these past 16 years. Caring Medical does full time Prolotherapy. People who are going to get a medical procedure that involves a lot of injections want a doctor who knows where to stick the needle! Experience counts in Prolotherapy. This is the number one reason I hear from patients as to why they chose to come to Caring Medical.

We (Marion and I, along with our staff) and our web-consultants associated with Caring Medical have written a lot of information on Prolotherapy and put it our wide array of websites. Anyone reading information on Prolotherapy on the internet should very quickly come across my name and the name of Caring Medical. Most people may not realize that I love to write. It is one the activities that makes me the happiest. I have really enjoyed writing about Prolotherapy. My staff helps writing some of the case studies on Prolotherapy and Marion, my wife, edits and writes for the e-newsletters and other writings on Prolotherapy. She also writes for her nutritional newsletters. She and Nicole Baird have done a great job writing the book The Hauser Diet and the various newsletters that go along with it.

While having a large internet presence does not necessarily mean that the doctor is going to be skilled at Prolotherapy, it at least gives the reader a chance to know what the doctor is thinking. With our large web presence, we are basically just sharing our experiences with Prolotherapy.

While the notion of getting a lot of injections into your body may not be appealing, surely you want every area of your body treated that is causing pain? Is it any wonder when a person goes to a Prolotherapy doctor and gets two or three shots why they don't get completely better?

We all know conceptually if you injure a structure in a joint that over time that injury is going to affect all the structures of the joint. Most people come to a Prolotherapy doctor after they have had the pain for several years. What may have started out as a simple ligament sprain, after 3-6 years is now a total joint problem. All the structures of the joint and around the joint (or at least the majority of them) need to be treated with Prolotherapy to completely alleviate the pain!

It is common for me to see clients for the first time who talk about the one shot Prolotherapy they received at another office. While in the most technical sense, this might be Prolotherapy, (because they used a Prolotherapy solution), it is not effective Prolotherapy. To be effective, the Prolotherapy doctor must do the following:

• Stimulate all the structures that are injured to heal.
• Use enough solution per structure to induce a sufficient healing reaction.
• Use a strong enough solution per structure to induce a sufficient healing reaction.
• Help the person obtain maximum health if their health is not good.
• Assist the person in getting off medications, supplements, or traditional hormones (like birth control pills) that inhibit healing.
• Assist the person to get their lifestyle and relationships such that they help, rather than hinder, progress.

There is obviously more to it than the above, but the main point here is that in the history of Caring Medical, we have never had one client ever leave the office disappointed that they didn't get enough shots!

You have chronic pain and nothing seems to be helping? Perhaps the doctors or health care providers you are going to do not know what else to do? They start talking about giving you narcotics, cortisone shots, arthroscopy, or surgery. You go on the internet and start searching alternatives. You come across Prolotherapy. You want someone with experience, but you also know that you just don't feel good. You are tired, cranky, and irritable. You don't sleep well. Your sex drive is zilch. You are starting to get depressed. You realize you need help with your pain, but also you need to get your body built back up. You need to get healthy, or as I call it, Margaret you need a 50,000 mile tune-up! Your engine is broken down a little bit!

People come to Caring Medical for different reasons, but a top one is that we look at a person's healing ability. We test hormone levels and do Diet Typing, along with food allergy testing, to figure out what a person should eat to feel great! We help the person achieve a good night's sleep and get them back to exercising. We quickly wean people off of pain medications like anti-inflammatories and narcotic medications that inhibit healing. We can substitute other pain relievers like Ultram or muscles relaxers that do not inhibit healing. We also like to use natural remedies like vitamins, herbs, and natural hormones to aid healing. In other words, we help a person go from catabolic (degenerative) physiology to anabolic (building) physiology. Often people start feeling better right away. This is a big reason people come to Caring Medical!

When you get someone out of chronic pain, you change their life and the life of their family forever. These people then tell their friends about Prolotherapy. Most days I see people who came for their first Prolotherapy visit on the recommendation of a friend. What I tell them is that you can recommend Prolotherapy to your friends (to get them out of pain) or your enemies (because the injections are painful, though we can put an anesthetic cream on the skin to lessen it or give medications to help decrease the pain). Then I ask them, Does this person (friend) like you or not like you? Which are you friend or enemy? Prolotherapy changes lives! When you see someone you love wracked with pain who has been freed from the affliction using Prolotherapy, you obviously try to convince your friend to get it as well.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with many chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, osteopaths, naprapaths, naturopaths, orthopedic surgeons, and other health care providers who willingly recommend appropriate patients to Caring Medical. Even the best pain clinicians sometimes can not get someone better because they have a lesion or injury that will only heal by Prolotherapy. For someone with ligament laxity, the best treatment is often Prolotherapy. The best health care providers know when to refer a client. Most days in the office I'll see a new client that was referred by one of their health care providers.

People really start looking for options when the doctor says that they need surgery. Most people know someone who had surgery for painful conditions only to have the pain recur or come back even worse some months or years after the surgery. In other words, people know pretty much that most surgeries for pain, do not cure the problem. When looking for alternatives to surgery for conditions such as degenerative arthritis, herniated discs, ligament injuries, rotator cuff tears, meniscal or labral tears, tendinosis, and other painful conditions, Prolotherapy makes a lot of sense. Prolotherapy stimulates the body to repair the painful areas. That which is repaired will have completely normal strength. Normal strength means cure. Many people who get Prolotherapy are cured of their pain. As I have said, the vast majority of people who get Prolotherapy will get 75% or greater of their pain relieved. If they take care of themselves, the pain should not recur.

But why Prolotherapy at Caring Medical? Well, one of the books I wrote was Prolotherapy: An Alternative To Knee Surgery. Over the years, we have had a tremendously high success rate at helping people get out of pain who were told they need surgery for their condition. At a minimum, a second opinion is always recommended when surgery is the option recommended for pain (unless it is an emergency). We will soon be publishing our data on patients we are following who have received Prolotherapy instead of surgery. The results are outstanding with Prolotherapy. Prolotherapy can prevent you from getting an unwanted, unnecessary, and maybe not-so-successful surgery.

"Doctor, you are my last hope!" I would say I hear that every other day from a new client. Honestly, I love to hear those words. Most of these clients do very well with Prolotherapy. When faced with someone who has hit rock bottom, I don't see them as rock bottom, I see them as having a great gift. You see, most of us do not have thankful, grateful hearts to wake up everyday without pain. We just take it for granted. We go throughout our day and just assume everyday we'll be healthy and be able to run, bike, swim and do everything we want to do. Once this taken from you because of chronic, debilitating pain, you understand better how being pain free is a gift and that gift can be taken away from you at any moment. Once a person becomes pain free after Prolotherapy, they typically live the rest of their lives in a healthier state. They no longer take walking down the road for granted. For many, their faith in God gets stronger (because they did become pain free and tragedy like chronic pain often does get us praying like we should). Besides that, people who have been disabled by pain and then become pain free have a softer heart for the down trodden. They become more giving people. So pain can be a gift to help us get our priorities right. So when the doctor says no other treatment options are available, I have to disagree. The person should get an evaluation for Prolotherapy. Fortunately, many of them do!

But why Caring Medical? Well the tougher the case, the more likely they are to come to Caring Medical. It is clear from our websites and the way we treat clients, that often someone who is in severe pain and had a multitude of treatments that natural medicine will be needed along with Prolotherapy. Because we are a natural medicine clinic that does Prolotherapy, the combination works great, especially for people who are on a lot of pain medications. Pain medications typically suppress healing, whereas helping a person become healthy (through natural medicine) helps the person heal, especially heal after the Prolotherapy.

For people without insurance, many pain therapies are just too expensive. Physical therapy and chiropractic therapies can run about $200 per session. Prescription pain medications can be several hundred dollars per month. What if you don't have insurance and the doctor is recommending an EMG/NCV test ($1200) or an MRI ($2500). What about if arthroscopy has been recommended ($13,000) or surgery ($25,000)? What if you are a carpenter from Serbia?

Chicago is very ethnic. Many people that I see work for themselves. They do not have fancy insurance plans. These people love Prolotherapy. Most joints cost $250 to treat per session. Most joint/ligament/tendon injuries are treated once per month for three to six months. So say a person gets one joint treated every month for four months, they will end up spending a $1000 for the Prolotherapy over a four month period. Yes, there is the $250 new patient consultation fee and I'll probably want them on $100 worth of supplements every month. The total cost may be in the order of $1650 for a chronic knee problem, for instance. But the good news is, often that is it! No more treatments. Have a nice life. During the time the person is getting Prolotherapy, they can still work and earn money. So if they get Prolotherapy over a four month period, that is a total of 120 days. $1650 divided by 120 days ends up costing the person about $13 per day for 4 months to rid themselves of their chronic knee pain.

While this is not inexpensive by any means, the clients I see come because their pain often is keeping them from working. So often after the first Prolotherapy treatment, they get some pain relief and can get back to working. Granted $13 per day of their work will end up going for the Prolotherapy, but that beats a $2500 MRI or the time they would need to be off work if they had an arthroscopy or surgery done. Physical therapy and chiropractic care can work wonders on some people, but the therapy can get expensive. If you have to pay out of pocket, it can quickly add up to thousands upon thousands of dollars. If there is a torn ligament, torn meniscus, or tendon tear or injury involved, most likely this type of treatment will not permanently cure the person of the pain. People who have to pay the bill themselves want to get a treatment that they believe will cure them of their pain. Many of these people get Prolotherapy.

Because Caring Medical does so much Prolotherapy, we are able to keep our costs down. For many it is actually cheaper to get Prolotherapy at Caring Medical then by the Prolotherapy doctor in their own state. We have heard people spending thousands and thousands of dollars for Prolotherapy at a clinic closer to their home, but without results. We commonly see patients who feel they are good Prolotherapy candidates come to Caring Medical for a second opinion about Prolotherapy and end up seeing us for their care.

Athletes, whether they are professional, or high school, or weekend jocks, want to be out of pain quickly, so they can get back into the game! I recently saw a trapeze artist who threw out her back. Our conversation went something like this, "Jane, you can get other therapies you know." "Like what?" She said. "Well, you can physical therapy. I could write you a referral. You could get chiropractic or osteopathic physiotherapy. You don't need to get Prolotherapy. Prolotherapy is more invasive then these other treatments." "How many treatments of Prolotherapy do you think I'll need?" "Well, since this just happened, most likely one visit, possibly two?" "Well, it's worked for my other areas, I want to get out of pain quickly. Can we do the treatment today?" Jane only needed one visit of Prolotherapy ($525) and her back was fine.

Athletes may have sectionals, world championships, conference titles, or just the start of the season and they get injured. What treatment can you do that can almost instantly get you feeling better and after which it is okay to start exercising the very next day? Not many; but Prolotherapy is one of them. I know of no other treatment that so quickly can start tissues healing. You don't believe me? I had an NBA staring guard get Prolotherapy on his neck and back of his shoulder blade and the very next day I saw him on T.V. playing a game in New York. Every year we have professional football players come in on Tuesdays (their days off) and go back to practice on Wednesday and then play football on Sunday. Prolotherapy works fast. This is why some people choose to get Prolotherapy.

Since I am an athlete (five time Ironman triathlete, multiple marathons, ultramarathons, 18:39 5K) I understand what the athlete feels. If I was an athlete, I would like to go to a doctor that was an athlete and isn't going to tell me not to run anymore. Prolotherapy can get athletes quickly out of pain in most cases and the athlete can continue to train while getting Prolotherapy. Need I say more? Well, that is the list off of the top of my head. I am sorry if I forgot one or two of the reasons. Most of all, I wish you the best of health. Remember that no matter what happens in life, that you can always Prolo Your Pain and Sports Injuries Away!