Video Transcription

I’m often asked in regard to athletes especially young athletes, if they have an injury in the knee, if Prolotherapy will help that injury. Prolotherapy is a series of injections that can replace the need for surgery. The injections contain natural substances which accelerate healing and tissue repair. It’s always good to look at anatomy (holding a model of the knee). This is the patellar tendon. This is the medial meniscus. Over here you see the lateral meniscus. This is thearticular cartilage. This white area here you can see various ligaments. This is the medial collateral ligament. This is the lateral collateral ligament. Then there’s two ligaments on the inside of the knee, I'll just show you one of them but this is the anterior cruciate ligament. Basically all these tendons, ligaments, and the meniscus can all be repaired with Prolotherapy. So Prolotherapy is effective basically for all tendon, ligament, and meniscus injuries in the knee. It is also effective for articular cartilage injuries. The only injury where an athlete might need surgery is where there is a complete tear, like a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament. But almost every ligament injury is a partial tear or partial injury. So any athlete that has knee pain from a ligament injury, tendon injury, meniscus injury, or articular cartilage injury, should get an evaluation for Prolotherapy especially if knee surgery was recommended. There’s very few times where an athlete needs surgery on the knee, especially young athletes. 99 percent of knee injuries can be healed conservatively. I would say Prolotherapy is also a conservative treatment. It doesn’t interfere with training. It just involves some injections into and around the knee. The treatment goes very fast. Sure there are times where the treatment has to be repeated. Some athletes heal in one visit. Depending on the injury some people need three or four visits. But again, the athlete can continue to train while they get Prolotherapy.