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First Prolotherapy treatment today!

S

StoneColdGold

New member
i'm very excited about this. i'm a huge fan of alternative-type treatments. i having my low back worked on. i have degenerative disk disease and a host of other problems that come along with it. despite playing professional football, i have the low back strength of a 90-lb boy! if i try to do even moderate weight power cleans, i can't walk right for a week. i haven't been able to do heavy squats in years. my athleticism is greatly hindered by the constant pain and weakness in the low back, hips, and occasional radiating pain down the leg. basically, if this treatment is as successful as i've heard it can be, it will be huge things for how i'm able to train and thus for my career. i will be sure to let everyone know how it goes in case there are others looking for pain treatment!

thanks in advance to zyglamail for the recommendation.
 
great

definitely keep us updated bro. I have the same problems as you, and I'm only 23. Degenerative disk disease, hips always out of alignment, the nice burning sensation down the back of the leg. Scapular muscle pulls. Now my shoulders are all fucked up, both of 'em are impinged.

Like you I haven't been able to squat, deadlift, bent over row or overhead heavy pressing since high school.

You sure can tell when those hips are out of whack. Got to use the handlbars on the treadmill sometimes.lol
 
BUUUUMP! I have similar problems guys - I have "degenerative disk disease" - basically lead to a "Mushroomed" disk (herniated disk) and my hips are out of alignment. Docs have told me that there is nothing short of surgery (that is risky and won't really completely heal me anyway) they can do. PLEASE update this link as the treatment is going on!!!!
 
guys i will keep you both updated. in the meantime...

rj420-- you should look into A.R.T. if you haven't already. i've had tremendous success alleviating some of the problems associated with our condition... including major shoulder impingement and even dislocation. read this thread!

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101525&highlight=shoulder+injury

i also get the muscle pulls in the upper back, thanks to how out of alignment everything gets. i'm only 25... been dealing with this since i was 16!! my father has already had two surgeries.

newpump... i wouldn't get surgery unless you literally can't walk!! thats about where my dad was. he had lost most of the strength in one leg. have you had any work done by a chiropractor for your hips?
 
Good luck...

please keep this updated i have 2 herniated discs in my neck.. my rehab has only taken me so far.. surgery is not really an option in my mind.. so i am looking into this but i do not have much feedback on people doing neck/back treatments..

Thanks
 
Definatly keep us posted StoneColdGold. Sounds like if it is even partially helpfull it will be a big improvement for you. Nothing worse than chronic pain. Just remember prolo encourages your body to heal itself so it wont be an overnight process but the plus side is ya dont have to go under the knife and you only miss a couple days in the gym every month (if that).
 
StoneColdGold said:
i'm very excited about this. i'm a huge fan of alternative-type treatments. i having my low back worked on. i have degenerative disk disease and a host of other problems that come along with it. despite playing professional football, i have the low back strength of a 90-lb boy! if i try to do even moderate weight power cleans, i can't walk right for a week. i haven't been able to do heavy squats in years. my athleticism is greatly hindered by the constant pain and weakness in the low back, hips, and occasional radiating pain down the leg. basically, if this treatment is as successful as i've heard it can be, it will be huge things for how i'm able to train and thus for my career. i will be sure to let everyone know how it goes in case there are others looking for pain treatment!

thanks in advance to zyglamail for the recommendation.
Click to expand...
Look into ART www.activerelease.com as well
 
damn

i figured living in Florida I would be able to find a provider close by. WRONG.... closest one is roughly 150-200miles away according to www.activerelease.com.

I'm gonna try to find one close by... there has to be someone.
 
Re: damn

rj420 said:
i figured living in Florida I would be able to find a provider close by. WRONG.... closest one is roughly 150-200miles away according to www.activerelease.com.

I'm gonna try to find one close by... there has to be someone.
Click to expand...

yea man the closest one to O-town is in Sarasota which is far as hell. The dr there does have an office in O-town but it's by special appointment only whatever that means.
 
skull-- i've been getting ART for years. i love it. but it hasn't helped with my back condition.

the update:

OOOOOWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

and i mean that both physically and financially. yesterday afternoon i had 25 cc's of solution injected directly into the small of my back for the bargain price of $533!!!! "ok here's the plan doc, if you make me hurt like a motherfucker, i'll give you half a grand... sound good?" they told me follow up visits (i'll need 6-8) will run about $350. Zygla... was it this expensive for you? the fucked up thing is that for some reason, this doctor doesn't even take insurance! i think i have a good chance of getting reimbursed through workman's comp... but if not this is going to be the shortest treatment in history. no way i can afford this out of my own pocket.

as for my back... its sore and tender but in a good way. i'm supposed to go back every two weeks, so we're talking several months before anything really worthwhile happens.
 
Stone, what kind of solution did he use? Most of mine have been dextrose/lydocain, but last time I didnt show much improvement so he used a fish oil base and it hurt like a mofo and I was bruised and swelled up for almost a week.

As for the cost, it varies a lot depending on what is treated. Your initial visit was likely more simply because of the consultation but the return visits sound about right. I know that it seems like a lot of money, and it is, but whats your alternative? For my original problem (tendonitis in elbow and shoulder) I had 4 treatments of about $280 each, was the best $1000 I ever spent.

As for them taking insurance they dont, the main reason is because the insurance companies dont cover it so there is no point in them being set up to accept it. On a side note however if you have been diagnosed and can prove the treatment is helping you can take it to your insurance company (or workmans comp) and prove to them it was an essential and needed treatment. Many people have actually sued their insurance comapnaies and won in regards to them paying for prolo.

As I have mentioned in the past its not an overnight fix, but neither is surgery, especially if you consider the down time from surgery as well as rehabilitation. At least with prolo your only affected for a couple days after treatment. The fact that he thinks your treatable is a definate plus, so many people in your position simply live with the pain and the reduced athletacism that goes along with it.
 
he used the standard dextrose/lydocain solution but added something else as well (i believe he said sodium something). he said it would hurt a lot more, but would essentially be like getting two treatments in one. i said go for it.

well i'm glad to know i'm not getting totally ripped off. i'm heading over now to see about getting reimbursed. if i get this treatment for free AND it solves a problem i've been dealing with for a decade, i'm going to be so flippin happy.
 
With treatments 2 weeks apart it may be hard to tell if its helping due to the stiffness etc but hopefully in the next 6-8 weeks you should be able to tell the difference. Whats your docs name?
 
StoneColdGold said:
well looks like i should be getting full reimbursement through workman's comp. gold bless it.
Click to expand...
Great to hear!!
 
well i was supposed to get my second treatment today. i had worked out getting the entire cost covered through workmans comp. turns out this doctor doesn't treat workmans comp patients. what a joke. fucking guy doesn't take insurance and doesn't treat workman's comp cases. then he has the nerve to charge over $500 for less that 45 minutes of treatment! god i hate doctors.

anyway... talked to my work... guy there said he had just talked to workman's comp and they were getting ready to mail me my reimbursment check from my first visit. at least if i can't get something worked out here i didn't blow $500 by only getting a single treatment. ARGH!
 
Bummer stone. Many of these types of docs dont want to deal with insurance companies because dealing with them is worse than dealing with the government, while it sucks as a customer, I can understand where they are comming from. If you pay out of pocket will Workmans comp reimburse you? That may be the way to go. I myself am paying all out of pocket, and when I first had it done about 9 months ago now on my elbow I was suffering from sticker shock as well. My second tretatment was only 2 weeks after first so I couldnt tell if it was working that soon but was at least determined to try since nothing else I tried helped. By my third appointment there had been a significant improvement. I know when I talk to friends about it they say they would never due it because of the expense. I try to explaine to them that not doing what I love to do (ie lift and train) is very important to me and since they are all couch potatoes they simply cant understand. In the end I tell them its the best $1000 I ever spent, I would have charged it if I had to. Granted what I am having treated now isnt nearly as bad as my elbow was, but I dont want to let it get that bad either, chronic laxity can lead to arthritis and life long problems. I plan on lifting for many years to come so I look at an occasional treatment just as I do gym dues and protein powder.

On a side note, I was supposed to get treated yesterday myself, but my Docs father got rushed into surgery so he was late, actually wasnt go to be there until 45 minutes after my appointment time and there were 2 people ahead of me. Not a big deal for me, but the guy who just drove in 200 miles wasnt at all happy. I go in end of next week.
 
StoneCold
I agree w/ Zygla about the insurance deal. I'm a doc, 75% of my practice is prolotherapy. Although I do take insurance, I get tired of doing my best for patients, spending lots of time with them, taking the medico-legal risk, and then getting screwed or stiffed by the third party payors (Insurance , WC, Medicare). They do anything in their power to hold up or deny my payments (while the money in their coffers racks up interest), and my overhead goes up. Besides, where's the problem if you get reimbursed?
Prolo is great, though. I've done tens of thousands of these injections w/out a major complication and with very high success rates. As Zygla says, it requires time, time, time. This is a truly anabolic process; we are stimulating a tissue building process; nothing else in medicine really like it.
BTW, the strong stuff is sodium morrhuate; it's a cod liver oil extract with a high percentage of arachadonic acid. We add it to the dextrose solution in some cases. Very effective, but hurts like a motherfucker! I got carried away w/ it once doing my own shoulder for a rotator cuff injury. Hd to reach across with my right arm to close the car door for 2 days. Yow! Gotta respect the power of morrhuate!
www.getprolo.com is a good site with lots of archive articles and a doc finder.
Regards,
Buffdoc (aka, prolodoc)
 
buffdoc said:
BTW, the strong stuff is sodium morrhuate; it's a cod liver oil extract with a high percentage of arachadonic acid. We add it to the dextrose solution in some cases. Very effective, but hurts like a motherfucker! I got carried away w/ it once doing my own shoulder for a rotator cuff injury. Hd to reach across with my right arm to close the car door for 2 days. Yow! Gotta respect the power of morrhuate!
www.getprolo.com is a good site with lots of archive articles and a doc finder.
Regards,
Buffdoc (aka, prolodoc)
Click to expand...
I have been having my back and foot done(and both elbows since they cause a tad discomfort when I press etc), two treatments so far. After first didnt notice much so when I went in for the second(4 weeks later) he said he could use the morrhuate which was a bit stronger but he said since Im so active etc I could handle it. Good gawd, it made the first treatment seem like walk in the park. I couldnt see my back but my elbows were all bruised and about 1.5 times their normal size due to swelling. I couldnt straighten then all the way nor could I bend them all the way, was quite the experience but once I could actually move it seems to work much much better than the plain dextrose.

Stones doc 3anted to treat him every 2 weeks so morrhuate may be a tad strong for that....at least judging by the way I felt.
 
buffdoc-- i totally understand about the shitty position you guys are in. its just frustrating to be so close to a solution to a problem that has be seriously holding back my athletic potential for years, only to have it yanked away. perhaps my anger is better directed at the insurance companies! i will be sure to have the business office guy from my work check to see if workman's comp will just reimburse me for each seperate visit.

on a seperate topic... how much experience do you have with treating low back/ddd type conditions? i'd be interested to hear about your experience with number of visits and time frame for healing, as well as success rates.

zyg-- i hear what you're saying about no price tag being too much if it means you can do what you love. that's really where i stand with football. if i had it, i would drop the cash no problem... but at an average of almost $400 a visit and needing 8-10 visits... well you see where i'm going with this!!! talk about your catch 22... i'm going to need to get my back fixed before being able to develop enough as a player to make serious money... but i can't get my back fixed without having the serious money first!

regarding the sodium morrhuate... i didn't have the intense post-injection swelling you describe. it actually didn't feel that bad at all afterwards. it was just during the 25 injections containing the stuff that i wanted to cry like a little girl.
 
on a seperate topic... how much experience do you have with treating low back/ddd type conditions? i'd be interested to hear about your experience with number of visits and time frame for healing, as well as success rates.

Hey Stone,
I do prolo every day for low back and cervical DDD and spondylosis. It's my main thing, (although I do all the peripheral joint work, too).
I usually tell new patients that 4 to 6 treatments is about average to get someone optimized, and then the healing continues for many months after the last injections. Obviously, it's an individual thing, some more, some less. The beauty is that if reinjury or further degeneration occurs, you can do a booster session or two and that's usually all that will be needed.
I usually do a treatment, wait 2 to 3 weeks, do it again, 3 to 4 weeks, etc. This varies with the doc. Some wait a full 6 wks between treatments, others do it every week. I like my method best: time in between for healing, but not so long that the process takes forever.
In people who stay the course and get an adequate # of treatments, success rates around 85% even sometimes with spinal stenosis, which is a real bear.
Of course, that's doing it the way I do it. My typical low back treatment is 60 to 70 cc's volume, 40 to 50 shots. I do both SI's, and all associated ligaments, the mid-line ligaments, lumbar facets and transverse processes from about L2 or L3 down to S1.
I feel we need to stabilize the entire posterior pelvis, or we're just kidding ourselves. Can't just put a few shots in "where it hurts", if you will. If we do this stabilization, the risk of herniation and further degeneration in the future is lower.
Whew! Better stop or I'll booted off the anabolic forum. PM me if you have other "issues".
Regards,
buffdoc
 
Prolotherapy

to anyone considering prolo,

I am 25 and have had horrible migranes most of my life along with tearing my rotator cuff and was also involved in a car accident which worsened my migranes but also caused back and neck problems. I have been though doctor after doctor with the same response "take all these 3 times a day and i'll see you next month" this had gone on for years until 2 years ago a friend of mine went to work for a neuroligist/pain specialist. i got a referall and for the first time i have actually mad great progress!! I started off with a treatment of about 100-175 small injections in areas of my skull all the way down my back(dextrose/lydocaine) every month then after 3 months i only had the prolo every other month with trigger point injections the month in between. although the treatment is NOT what you would call comfortable or painless the resluts are nothing short of amazing!!! also recently my doctor has gotten in a machine that gives a electro-shock massage. i get a 20 min. session before the prolo to relax the muscles and then another 10 min. session after the prolo to help facilitate the absorbtion of the dextrose. with the addition of the massage the results are becoming even better due to the higher absorbtion. i do get extremly lucky in that my insurance does cover the treatment so i avoid the high out of pocket costs.
i have talked to my doctor to try and get any help for those of you whose insurance wont cover the treatment and his advise is to try specifically pain specialists as the have more treatment options approved by insurances also your doctor can also send a letter explaining the treatment and resluts to your insurance this is due to it being realitivly new
i hope this can be of some help
best of luck to all of you
 
I agree completely. The vast majority of my patients get coverage for my prolo. Medicare is an exception

Buffdoc
 
How would I ask my health insurance if they cover prolotherapy? Reason being the last time I asked them if they covered active release therapy, I had to explain in detail what it was before the person knew what to look for in her computer. How should I explain prolotherapy should that type of person answer the phone again?
 
buffdoc... check your P.M.

spyder... that is an incredible story. i thought injections into the low back were bad... i can't imagine having them in my skull!!! your success gives me hope!

i actually have a good insurance company and believe they would cover the procedure... the problem isn't with them, though. my doctor doesn't take ANY insurance!!! that's what doesn't make sense to me. oh well.
 
stone cold...

give me a shout...either email me or call me. we need to catch up! Alot going on now you need to be filled in on..hope everything is going well.

Ammon
 
StoneColdGold said:
guys i will keep you both updated. in the meantime...

rj420-- you should look into A.R.T. if you haven't already. i've had tremendous success alleviating some of the problems associated with our condition... including major shoulder impingement and even dislocation. read this thread!

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101525&highlight=shoulder+injury

i also get the muscle pulls in the upper back, thanks to how out of alignment everything gets. i'm only 25... been dealing with this since i was 16!! my father has already had two surgeries.

newpump... i wouldn't get surgery unless you literally can't walk!! thats about where my dad was. he had lost most of the strength in one leg. have you had any work done by a chiropractor for your hips?
Click to expand...
So, since you are having prolotherapy, I guess the ART treatments did not work for you, eh?

-Spidey
 
StoneColdGold said:
i actually have a good insurance company and believe they would cover the procedure... the problem isn't with them, though. my doctor doesn't take ANY insurance!!! that's what doesn't make sense to me. oh well.
Click to expand...
If you get insurance to cover it and the doc doesnt accept insurance then you ismply have to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed, kind of sucks, but taking insurance is exactly what the docs have to put up with.

Delinquent, hard to say but if you ask them about prolo and they have the dazed look, then ask about sclerotherapy, it was what prolo was originally derived from. Even if your insurance does not cover it your doc may be able to furnish you with some info, general form letters etc you can use and send into insurance.
 
Spidey said:
So, since you are having prolotherapy, I guess the ART treatments did not work for you, eh?

-Spidey
Click to expand...

actually, ART has helped my back quite a bit... but the cummulative problems and weaknesses caused by the degenerative disk disease could not be totally resolved. i don't get huge back spasms like i used to. if i get small ones, i go in, get worked on, and the problem is solved. getting ART work on my lats has also made a tremendous difference with my shoulders. but even ART has its limitations... it cannot actually tighten lax ligaments.
 
Good point stone, when you have an injury that causes muscles to tighten in an effort to take up the slack they will spasm after a while and it can be terribly uncomfortable. Ive hurt both shoulders in the past and even laying down it was nearly impossible to get the muscles to relax, was painfull as hell.
 
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