Chronic pain relief is best achieved by using PIT (Perineural Injection Therapy) nowadays because the medicine has no side effects, works faster and better. Dr John Lyftogt discovered this treatment and used it for treating athletic injuries in Christchurch, NZ, at the sports arena built for the Commonwealth games. The athletes preferred PIT because it was the quickest way they could resume their athletics when given as a near-nerve injection. The rapid pain relief is typically within a minute in most injuries, including sports injuries. Rapid Pain Relief is a prerequisite for the Return of Function to occur, and it is the main reason PIT was so popular in sports injuries. PIT uses a buffered solution of 5%Dextrose which is surprisingly a powerful anti-inflammatory and analgesic agent. It is more effective and preferable than the alternatives including oral anti-inflammatory medicines, Lidocaine, Cortisone and Surgery.

Prolotherapy is an excellent treatment for degenerative osteo-arthritic joints (Hips, knees, etc.). This is not a new treatment; it was discovered in the 1930’s by Dr. George Hackett, a trauma surgeon in Canton, Ohio, in order to reduce unnecessary orthopedic surgery for minor joint injuries.  He discovered that joint and ligament repair could heal if an irritant solution was injected into the joint to stimulate the healing response. Several different medicines were tested but eventually a 25% Dextrose solution was found to be the best at stimulating the healing response, resulting in bone and cartilage regeneration, including the articular cartilage and Baker’s Cyst repair. It is very popular with patients because it effectively reduces the pain during the first visit, and is an outpatient treatment with no down time. You can usually walk immediately; the only rule is not to do an activity that increases pain during the healing phase, and do not take anti-inflammatory medicines or use ice packs, as these can stop the healing process which can last up to 6 weeks. There are no side effects from Dextrose. I became interested in Prolotherapy in 2006 for the treatment of my own painful arthritic knees, and my knees are still normal after 18 years.  

I have seen many arthritic joint patients who have had cortisone injections into their joints for pain, but this is a short sighted idea because cortisone blocks all physiological activity including healing, and so your joint will continue to degenerate, and you may have to endure the joint replacement that you were trying to avoid! So go to a doctor who is specifically trained in Prolotherapy (and does not perform surgery) so as to avoid a conflict of interest. You should always start with a Prolotherapist who specializes in Prolotherapy, not a surgeon, and if that fails then you can consider surgery. 

Prolotherapy was very successful when introduced in the 1930s. While it should have been welcomed as a victory for cost-effective medical care, but it was denied by the healthcare insurers because it was “too good,” meaning it was not popular with the surgeons and hospitals who were losing money. So the health insurers declined insurance coverage for it: maybe the hospitals had better lobbyists. This is still the situation today, some 85 years later, where the insurers are still denying safer and cheaper treatments that push patients into unnecessary surgeries which carry more serious risks. It is unethical and it should be illegal. And Medicare is just as guilty. (Talk to your employer and congressman). Interestingly, I’ve had insurance company employees who had my non-surgical treatments, presumably covered by their employer (the insurer) because they were never concerned about the cost which is always a fraction of the surgical cost, plus there was no prolonged recovery with physical therapy and weeks or months off work for them. There are many other safe out-patient minor procedures that could replace existing high cost major surgical procedures, but healthcare insurers make a lot of profit from the sale of surgical coverage; it’s the most expensive portion of our health insurance. Put simply, the profit from selling ALL the surgical policies is far greater than ALL the costs of surgery! Healthcare insurers should have to follow ethical and cost-effective guidelines. It would improve the quality of care and significantly lower the cost of all health insurance which is precisely the reason why the health insurers object to medical ethics getting in the way of profit. We would all be better off if we had cost-effective medicine where the decisions are made by the doctor and patient.  

Another excuse for denying health insurance coverage is that they say they only cover FDA approved medicines and not natural substances. This is in service to Big Pharma who cannot legally patent a natural substance, and who would prefer you use one of their high markup pharmaceutical products instead. However, the Health Insurers pay for hospital and ambulance use of D5W (5% Dextrose in Water), which is a pharmaceutical grade glucose solution used intravenously for many purposes. And IV Glucose is used in the ER to treat Hypoglycemia in Diabetics, so why can’t they approve Dextrose for Prolotherapy and Neuropathies where there’s no adequate alternative to treat NeuroGlycoPenia (low nerve sugar level) and relieve (and usually cure) Neuropathies? Prolotherapy is a safe and effective treatment for osteoarthritic joint degeneration, and has been around since the 1930s. It is still taught today as a post graduate specialty. It is also denied by the Health Insurers and it condemns patients to the same racket of unnecessary surgical risks where the financial cost of joint replacement is huge (by comparison) and the time lost to post surgical rehabilitation can be enormous. Health Insurers should not be allowed to direct patients into unnecessary surgery where there’s greater morbidity and mortality. That’s unscrupulous and unconscionable, and should be illegal with mega fines and loss of health insurance license. Removal of mandatory surgery would go a long way to reduce the cost of Health Care.