Blood is a Great Proliferant
Blood is a Great Proliferant
Ross A. Hauser, M.D.
One of the philosophies that we have at Caring Medical and that I personally have is that God knows best. You can respectfully disagree with us (or me) but I haven’t found anyone smarter than Him. When we say the body knows best, we in essence are saying, “the creator knew what He was doing.” This philosophy permeates many of the beliefs that you have read about in our various newsletters, blogs, videos, etc. including:
-
God made the body to heal by inflammation, so in the end anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs, Orthokine, Corticosteroids)that inhibit healing are going to be poor choices that further the degenerative process. Prolotherapy and other natural remedies that work to cause localized inflammation in the injured tissue will stimulate repair.
-
God didn’t make the body with a slew of titanium and plastic parts, so in the end getting joint replacements is not the best option. Because God did not make the body contain foreign parts, putting them in your body cannot be good long term. If it is a matter of life and death or disability or not, there of course is a place for plastic and titanium in the body. What most people don’t realize is that if a person would use natural remedies, including Prolotherapy, no plastic or titanium is needed. My titanium road bike, however, is awesome!
-
God created the healing elements in the body to travel through the blood, so using blood or for that matter bone marrow, stem cells, and/or fat tissue for healing is, in the end, going to be a good idea. Autologous (from your own body) solutions like PRP, bone marrow and adipose-derived stem cells are taking healing elements out of the body’s own “reserve” and putting them into places where degeneration occurs. This makes a lot of sense and will result in great outcomes.
Whole blood as a proliferant: One of the autologous solutions that can be used as a proliferant is whole blood. George Hackett, MD studied this over 50 years ago.1,2 The originator of the term “Prolotherapy” compared blood to various other proliferants, including exercise and cortisone. Dr. Hackett found that cortisone inhibited healing (he was one of the first) and that blood and exercise had about the same effect on ligaments – and this was over 50 years ago! These other treatments stimulated healing to a point, but not as much as sylnasol, which is similar to the compound used at our office called sodium morrhuate (extract of cod liver oil). See Figure (3-7 PYPA, Third Edition, page 37).
PRP vs Blood injections:
Recently researchers at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in England compared platelet rich plasma (PRP) Prolotherapy to autologous blood injection (ABI) Prolotherapy for resistant tennis elbow.3 ABI involves taking whole blood from the patient’s vein and using it as a proliferant to inject into the injured area. PRP involves processing the patient’s whole blood and extracting the growth factors, then injecting it into the injured area of the body.
At six months the results revealed a 66% success rate in the PRP group versus 72% in the ABI group. A higher rate of conversion to surgery occurred in the ABI group (20%) versus the PRP group. The authors concluded that in patients who are resistant to first-line physical therapy such as eccentric loading, ABI and PRP injections are both useful second-line therapies to improve clinical outcomes. See figure 4 from their study.
.jpg)
If one looks at the above study, one could easily make the case that the results were as good or even better by using whole blood as the proliferant versus PRP. In essence, this would make some sense because when a person injures tissue, many blood elements are required to heal the area. While many of the healing elements are in the platelets, surely not all of them are located there. There have been times at Caring Medical that a person simply couldn’t afford the PRP part of the Prolotherapy, but desired it. We instead used whole blood as the proliferant, as this was less expensive for the patient. The results? Good of course.
Remember the most important factors in assessing a patient’s response to Prolotherapy are these:
1. Where are the Prolotherapy injections given?
2. Who is giving the injections to you? (ie the experience of the Prolotherapy doctor).
3. What solution is being given?
Too often people rush to number 3 when assessing the success of a particular treatment, when often numbers 1 and 2 may be part of the problem.
The take home point: Why did Dr. Hauser write this? Here are his reasons for writing this article:
-
Blood is a good proliferant. Don’t worry if some blood cells get into your joint or into your PRP solution. If you are on blood thinners and some blood gets into the joint, no worries. Yes, if you have hemophilia that is a different ball of wax already, because you have a genetic clotting disorder. If you have hemophilia can you get Prolotherapy? Absolutely!
-
People forget blood is a proliferant that God made and He knows what He is doing.
As always we at Caring Medical wish you the best of health. If you feel we could potentially help you, please consider coming to Caring Medical, as I think our staff is the best! Contact us at 708-848-7789 or scheduling@caringmedical.com.
References:
1Hackett G. Joint stabilization: An experimental, histologic study with comments on the clinical application in ligament proliferation. American Journal of Surgery. 1955;89:968-973.
2Hackett G. Back pain following trauma and disease-Prolotherapy. Military Medicine. 1961;July:517-525.
3Creaney L, Wallace A, Curtis M. Growth factor-based therapies provide additional benefit beyond physical therapy in resistant elbow tendinopathy: a prospective, single-blind, randomized trial of autologous blood injections versus platelet-rich plasma injections. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2011;45:966-971.
Leave a Comment
Recent Blog Articles:
Complete Blog List
|
