Prolotherapy Specialist

What is prolotherapy?

Prolotherapy involves having an injection into an injured tendon, ligament, or joint. Dr. Flanagan includes a concentrated sugar solution in your prolotherapy injections to stimulate your body’s natural healing processes and strengthen the injured tissues.

After prolotherapy, you should experience an improvement in joint function and a reduction in pain. Prolotherapy could be a viable alternative to surgery for some patients.

In addition to traditional prolotherapy, Dr. Flanagan offers neural prolotherapy, which uses a lower concentration of sugar solution. Neural prolotherapy targets the subcutaneous nerves under your skin for the treatment of nerve pain or neuropathy.

What conditions can prolotherapy treat?

Prolotherapy can treat a variety of chronic ligament, joint, and tendon problems. The pain you experience with these conditions is often due to improper tissue healing after an initial injury. As prolotherapy restarts your body’s healing powers, it can often help improve repairs that were previously unfinished.

Ligament and tendon injuries also cause laxity in the tissues and hypermobility of the joint because the tissues don’t spring back after being overstretched. This results in weakness of the joint that makes you vulnerable to further injuries. Prolotherapy can help your body strengthen these loose tissues and joints.

Some of the conditions Dr. Flanagan treats with prolotherapy include:

• TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorders
• Tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis)
• Golfer’s elbow (medial epicondylitis)
• Shoulder tendinitis
• Achilles tendinitis
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Fibromyalgia and myofascial pain
• Sacroiliac joint disorders
• Degenerative disc disease
• Pinched nerves
• Sciatica
• Whiplash injuries

Prolotherapy is also a useful treatment for patients with osteoarthritis, as the injections can help slow down joint deterioration.

How does prolotherapy work?

The sugar solution in prolotherapy triggers a mild inflammatory response in damaged tissues that triggers cells to heal the area.. A course of prolotherapy injections helps to build up more healthy tissue and restore strength to injured, weakened areas.

Dr. Flanagan can also use prolotherapy in combination with PRP (platelet-rich plasma). PRP is another natural substance that encourages tissue repair and new cell growth, making your treatment even more effective. Prolotherapy induces your normal healing response, while PRP adds millions of extra platelets to boost a stronger response.

It takes a while for your body to react to the inflammation caused by prolotherapy injections, so you won’t feel an immediate difference following your treatment. However, after a month or so, there might be enough new cells for you to notice an improvement. Many patients find that after a series of treatments over six months, they feel much stronger as well as enjoying decreased pain levels.

To benefit from the natural healing potential of prolotherapy, call Naples Regenerative Institute today or book an appointment online.