Botox
One would expect Botox to decrease headaches and neck pain because botox temporarily eliminates muscles spasms. Botox is the poison called botulism toxin. Think about it. Some people will actually allow injections of poison to get rid of their pain. Others will ingest the poisons. Some of these poisons that people take to eliminate their pain include vicodin, darvocet, Celebrex, Bextra, Vioxx, and others.
Most neck and headache pain originates from muscle spasms in the neck. The problem with anti-inflammatory medications, muscles relaxants, and the latest treatment 'Botox' is that it does nothing to eliminate the cause of the muscle spasm. Botox directly inhibits the nerve impulses from coming to the muscles. This is akin to a fire alarm going off because of a fire in the building and the owner of the company just takes the battery out of the fire alarm and says, "there's nothing to worry about! The alarm stopped ringing!" This is ridiculous. We need to determine why the neck muscle in spasm in the first place. Similarly, failure to put out the fire will mean that everyone in the building will be charred to death. Just because the fire alarm isn't going off doesn't mean everything is okay.
For most people, the reason for chronic neck muscle spasms is because the underlying ligaments are damaged/stretched/weakened, thus, they can no longer stabilize the neck. The brain then recruits the neck muscles to do it.
Once you knock out the neck muscles with Botox, then there is no stability in the neck. This will cause increased pressure on the discs and facet joints as the vertebrae move excessively (instability). This is a set up for development of proliferative arthritis in the neck. Unfortunately, this long term outcome typically results in people using long term muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory medications. This is most likely what long term studies will show with Botox use.
This is why we choose to great the underlying cause of the problem with treatments that actually cause strengthening of the weakened area, not further degeneration. Prolotherapy stimulates the body to repair the injured areas, utilizing the God-given process of inflammation. Doing things that stop the natural inflammatory reaction to injury only causes further degeneration. Taking supplements such as Pro-Cartilage, Bromelain Max, and ProloMax will also assist with tissue growth and healing. These are much better options than Botox and other poisons.
Lumbar Spinal Fusion
Ross Hauser, M.D.
Lumbar spinal fusion operations fuse together several segments of the vertebrae. Such an operation is commonly performed for spondylolisthesis, a condition where one vertebral segment slips forward on another. This causes back pain, especially when bending. By definition, spinal fusion causes permanent bonding or fusing of several vertebral segments. Mobility is decreased, causing increased stress on the areas above and below the fused segment. Over time, this stress may create weakened ligaments. The weakened ligaments lead to a degenerated disc, which eventually leads to a degenerated spine resulting in a painfully stiff back.
Prolotherapy Can Be an effective alternative to a laminectomy, a discectomy, or a lumbar spinal fusion. Prolotherapy initiates the repair process of the loose ligaments in spondylolisthesis and degenerated and herniated discs. For these reasons, Prolotherapy should be performed before a patient considers a surgical procedure to alleviate pain.
In her article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1992, entitled Patient outcomes after lumbar spinal fusions,” Judith A. Turner, Ph.D., noted that there has never been a randomized or double-blind study comparing lumbar spinal fusion with any other technique. In some cases, only 16 percent of the people experienced satisfactory results after the operation. On average, 14 percent of the people experience incomplete healing of the surgical site. The most frequent symptom persisting after the operation is low back pain, which is often the reason for the operation in the first place. Turner concluded her article by saying that the wide variability in reported success rates is bothersome and should be carefully considered by patients and their physicians when contemplating this procedure. Costovertebral ligament laxity often refers pain from the mid-upper back to the chest. This is one of the causes for chronic chest discomfort.
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