Video Transcription

As I’ve said before, there are certain pain conditions that I really have a passion about. One of the conditions I really have a passion about is Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. That is actually the pain syndrome that got me interested in pain management. So, as a resident I would collect articles on Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and I just always thought that everybody was missing something. That is just a very disabling condition and some people think it’s the most painful pain condition. To the point where recently I wrote an article on it so I really encourage people to read that article which was published in the Journal of Prolotherapy. [Article available at: http://www.prolotherapy.org/prolotherapy/crps-introduction] I really cover that condition very thoroughly in the article.

But in general, what I think really happens with probably half of the cases of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is that they have an injury to the hand or the foot and have a long period of immobility, whether it’s because they were placed in a cast or a boot or somebody thought just resting the joint would be helpful for them. The problem with that is that even if they have had a fracture, let’s be honest, if you fractured your hand or your foot or you had a big trauma to those areas, you probably injured some ligaments.

All one has to do is research ligament healing and immobility and you will see that immobility is the worst thing for healing ligaments because ligaments have a terrible blood supply. If you start immobilizing a ligament it’s going to start getting weaker and weaker very quickly. So, I think that probably about half of the cases Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome are because of ligament injury and it’s actually the ligaments that are perpetuating the syndrome. Now that (Prolotherapy) is not the only thing we would do. We would not just use Prolotherapy for these conditions because typically by the time I see the patient they have had pain for years. They have had the condition for years so there are endocrine problems, there are range of motion problems, there are bone density problems, there are life issues, marriage issues, financial issues. So, you really have to deal with all of them and I think Caring Medical in Oak Park, IL does a great job. So, Prolotherapy is definitely a part of it and works very, very well for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. But it needs to be combined with addressing all the issues the health issues, the pain issues, and also you have to get he patient off of narcotics because narcotics inhibit healing.

Part of the challenge with folks like that is that they generally come in on very high dose narcotics. The challenge is giving them pain relief when they are getting Prolotherapy. Prolotherapy works very, very well. I’m not going to say that it is a quick fix because it normally takes a year. But we do have had very good success with it. In the books that we wrote like Prolo Your Pain Away! we absolutely put Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy in it. We wrote a thorough article on it in the Journal of Prolotherapy so, I fell like our office is especially skilled at treating Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and I really encourage folks to consider us if they have that condition.