Post fracture pain treated with Prolotherapy
Have you ever completed treatment for a fracture or broken bone but still felt pain? Post-fracture pain is a common occurrence in people who have injuries from falls, motor vehicles accidents, direct blows and in athletes who participate in high-velocity sports such as football, rugby and soccer. Casting and immobilization are the typical treatments that help the bones heal, but injured tendons and ligaments may not have healed at the same time. Residual damage to tendons and ligaments results in pain. In addition, post-fracture pain may be due to the fact that the outside of the bone, or the periosteum, hasn't completely healed, something that would not show up on an X-ray. The inside of a bone does not contain nerve endings and therefore cannot feel pain, the outside of the bone does.
If you are familiar with post-fracture pain, you may remember persistent pain and/or weakness in the affected area well after the fracture itself has healed. If the periosteum, or the outside of the bone, did not heal properly, the pain can be quite brutal.
When pain persists after a fracture, traditional medical doctors tend to inject steroids into the painful area or to prescribe anti-inflammatory medications. However, in the long run, these treatments do more damage than good. Although cortisone shots and anti-inflammatory drugs have been shown to produce short-term pain benefit, but both result in long-term loss of function and even more chronic pain by actually inhibiting the healing process of soft tissues and accelerating cartilage degeneration. For more information on the detrimental effects of NSAIDs and steroids on joint health, check out our studies published in the Journal of Prolotherapy by clicking on the links for NSAIDs and steroids.
When all else fails, patients who experience chronic pain may be referred to a surgeon. Unfortunately, surgery often makes the problem worse. Surgeons will typically use X-ray technology as a diagnostic tool, which does not always properly diagnose the pain source. And if the surgery involves removing cartilage tissue, it will usually result in further arthritis.
Prolotherapy for post-fracture pain: An alternative approach to treating post-fracture pain is to stimulate ligament and tendon strengthening and repair with Prolotherapy once the cast has been removed. This will help ensure the complete healing of the injury so there are no long-term sequelae such as arthritis. If post-fracture pain is due to the outside of the bone not having completely healed, Prolotherapy can be used to strengthen the fibro-osseous junction near the source of the pain, which will cause the nerve endings in the periosteum to stop firing. In simple terms, Prolotherapy stimulates the body to repair painful areas. It does so by inducing a mild inflammatory reaction in the weakened ligaments and cartilage. Since the body heals by inflammation, Prolotherapy stimulates healing.
Prolotherapy will also speed up the recovery process, and has even been known to make the injured side stronger than the uninjured one, a benefit highly valued by many athletes, who are always eager to return to their activities as soon as possible.
Each Caring Medical patient receives a thorough examination to determine the root cause of pain and the correct course of treatment. Our Prolotherapy physician, Dr. Ross Hauser, is passionate about healing people of their pain and allowing them to return to a normal life.
If you are interested in more information about Prolotherapy or to schedule an appointment with Dr. Hauser, please contact us at 708-848-7789 or online using our contact form.
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