How Prolotherapy Can Help You Overcome Pain from These “Pseudo-conditions”

Before you start emailing me and telling me how prideful I am, let me just say to you right now I am very proud of my humility. Most of you know I love to laugh. Laughter is actually one of the best medicines. The top five conditions I will describe today do exist for some people, but most people who come to Caring Medical with these diagnoses do not have these conditions at all. That is one of the reasons they have not experienced pain relief, because the doctors they saw were likely treating the wrong conditions. I hope to convince you as to why I believe the diagnoses are wrong and how Prolotherapy can help you and others who have been diagnosed with these conditions. I will start with #1, which I believe is the number 1 diagnosed, and if I may call it this, “bogus” diagnosis.


#1: Degenerative Disc Disease

Most people who come to me for low back or neck pain truly believe that it is their degenerative disc disease that is causing the problem. Since everyone has degenerative disc disease by the age of 40, this can’t be the cause of the pain, since almost everyone at the age of the 40 has no neck or back pain. Honestly, degenerative disc disease even shows up in teenagers. Did you know that the most common reason that discs show up as degenerated on MRI’s and CT Scans is dehydration? The discs are very sensitive to dehydration. Since most of us don’t drink enough water, is it any wonder that so many people show up as having degenerative disc disease?

Why do you think so many people get disc surgery and have continued pain? Why do so many people get IDET (frying of the disc) and still have pain? The reason is the disc is not causing the pain problem the person is having. Sure, some people have degenerative discs that cause them pain, but the majority of people who have these diagnoses, have pain that is coming from another structure. What other structure? Thanks for asking.

Besides the nerve, the most painful part of the musculoskeletal system is probably where the muscles, ligaments, and tendons attach to the bone. The periosteum (outside of the bone) is very sensitive. This is where all these structures attach to the bone. So if a person has a ligament or tendon injury, it is almost always where it attaches to the bone. This can be amazingly painful. When a ligament is stretched, injured, or torn, the joint becomes unstable, since the ligaments provide stability for structures.

Why do people with low back pain have muscle spasms? Not because the discs are degenerated, because the discs do not provide stability to the lower back, the ligaments do. The muscles spasm in order to stabilize the back after a ligament injury. If you have neck or low back pain that is accompanied by muscle spasms, then think ligament injury. Since you are thinking ligament injury, then what treatment should you get to stimulate ligament repair? Prolotherapy! See this isn’t so hard is it?


#2 Sciatica

Everyone who has a pain radiating down the leg is diagnosed with sciatica. Okay, not everyone, just about everyone. Do you know that if a nerve is really pinched that you could barely have a conversation with me? You be wracked with pain. As it is now, your pain comes and goes. You may even have a tingling down your leg. No, it isn’t your sciatic nerve getting pinched. You simply have a ligament in your lower back, such as the sacroiliac ligament that is not stabilizing your pelvis. The pain or numb feeling down your leg is a referral pain. It isn’t a nerve getting pinched. If you can sit in a chair and raise your leg straight out in front of you without reproducing your pain, then most likely you have a ligament injury and not an injury to your sciatic nerve. (In other words, you don’t have lumbar radiculopathy).

If you have more low back pain than leg pain, then most likely you have a ligament injury in your back and not a pinched nerve. If you are in pain but it isn’t to the point of causing you to sweat, you most likely have a ligament injury, not a sciatic nerve getting pinched. If you can feel equally in both legs, in other words the numbness you feel isn’t true numbness, because when someone touches your skin you feel it fine. It is thus numbiness. Numbiness is the sensation of numbness, but on physical examination your sensation (sense of touch) is fine. This is a referral sensation, generally from a ligament injury, not a nerve injury.


#3 Lumbar Radiculopathy

The arguments against this diagnosis are the same as sciatica. If I suspect someone has lumbar radiculopathy, I generally have the patient get an EMG/NCV test to verify it. No, you can’t verify a nerve is getting pinched by an MRI or CT scan. It can suggest it. The actual physiological test to verify it is an electromyography/nerve conduction velocity test (EMG/NCV) on the actual nerves. Someone with a true lumbar radiculopathy typically has all of the below:
More leg pain than low back pain
90% of the pain or greater is leg pain
Pain gets to a 10 out of 10
The pain is unbearable
Even narcotic medications barely touch the pain
True numbness or weakness in muscles
MRI documentation of severe disc herniation or facet arthritis

Very seldom do I see people like that. Generally, they have bad pain, but they are talking to me fine. When I walk into the exam room to meet a new client and they are laying down in the fetal position and in obvious pain, then I suspect lumbar radiculopathy. Otherwise, it is another “bogus” diagnosis that the client received. Since ligaments, like the posterior hip ligaments, sacrotuberous, and sacroiliac and lumbosacral ligaments refer pain down the leg, when someone has some referral pain down the leg and doesn’t have the above signs/symptoms, then most likely I tell them they have a ligament injury. Once convinced they have a ligament injury, then the most logical treatment choice for them would be? You betcha, Prolotherapy.


#4 Pyriformis Syndrome

Chiropractors and physical therapist love to give people the diagnosis of pyriformis syndrome. “Your sciatic nerve is getting pinched by the pyriformis muscle.” People then spend years stretching out the pyriformis to try and “unpinch” the sciatic nerve. Since the person doesn’t have sciatica or lumbar radiculopathy, the pyriformis syndrome diagnosis is wrong. Please read information about lumbar radiculopathy and sciatica. It applies to the diagnosis of pyriformis syndrome as well.

Back to basics! Let’s go back to common sense principle number one. If the treatment a person is doing is not resolving the condition, then something is wrong. Another good sense principle is “if nothing changes, nothing changes.” In other words, if a person continues doing the same types of stretches, the same therapies, the same medications or the same herbs, or the same exercises, then the results will be the same. So doesn’t it make sense if a person is not getting better with a current therapy geared at a certain diagnosis that perhaps the diagnosis is wrong? What do you think?

Pyriformis syndrome is very rare. Think you have it? I dare you to prove it. Go get an EMG/NCV test and see if you have it. When your EMG/NCV test comes out normal, then go to a Prolotherapist to get an evaluation for lower back/sacroiliac joint Prolotherapy.
If your EMG/NCV test is positive, what are you going to do? Get surgery on your pyriformis muscles? I wouldn’t! Why not get Prolotherapy to your lower back and sacroiliac joints?
Perhaps your pyriformis muscle is in spasm because it is trying to contract against an unstable base? What is the unstable base you ask? It is the innominate bone? Why is it unstable? Great question. It is not stable because the sacroiliac joint on that side is loose. Just stabilize it with Prolotherapy then the pyriformis muscle can contract against a stable base. Once that happens, the muscle spasms stop and so does the sciatica. Either way, Prolotherapy is your best bet!


#5 Fibromyalgia

Those who know me, know I hate this diagnosis. If you are female, fat, and over 40 with pain, guess what diagnosis you are going to get? Fibromyalgia. If you are under 40 and the doctor doesn’t know what is wrong with you, guess what diagnosis you are going to get? Fibromyalgia. All one has to do is look up the diagnosis to realize it too is a “bogus” diagnosis. It doesn’t mean body pain doesn’t exist. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who have non restful sleep, migraines, fatigue, irritable bowel issues, and body pain. What I am saying we should call this condition? What it is?

What is it you ask? Great question. Generally it is relatively easy to figure out.
If you never had body pain until a car hit your car, then most likely the car accident caused ligament injuries.
You didn’t get Prolotherapy so the ligament injuries continued.
You stopped sleeping because of the severe pain.
Eventually your body stopped repairing well because of the poor sleep and now you have body pain. Why do you have body pain? Because the collagen, which makes up one third of your body, is not repairing well.
Why isn’t the collagen repairing well? I already told you, aren’t you paying attention. When a person doesn’t sleep well they don’t get into the deep stages of sleep (stage 3 and 4). When this happens, they don’t produce a lot of Human Growth Hormone which is the most important repair hormone in the body (some believe). So part of overcoming body pain from catabolic physiology (breakdown physiology) is getting a good night’s sleep.

So what is a person with body pain supposed to do? You have two options:
Option #1: continue with your rheumatologist and take anti-inflammatory medications which inhibit healing even further or continue with your present therapy and live with the condition.
Option #2: Try and cure yourself of body pain by trying to find the reason that you have it. Is it a food allergy, blood pH problem, infection, poor diet, ligament issue, stress issue, or other? In other words, see a Prolotherapy doctor who does natural medicine.

What’s the bottom line here? Get a thorough natural medicine evaluation which includes trying to figure out why you don’t sleep and correct it. Wherever there is ligament injury, get Prolotherapy. Prolotherapy works great for decreasing the pain of people diagnosed with “fibromyalgia,” though I don’t like this diagnosis. Okay, I won’t say anymore, I got enough people mad at me. But please, please, please, if you have been given one of the above diagnoses, don’t just sit idly by and let the pain ruin your life. There are answers to your pain problems! Come in and see us!