MORE PROOF THAT DEXTROSE PROTHERAPY WORKS:
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA CONFIRMS:
INFRAPATELLAR AND ACHILLES TENDINOPATHIES REPAIR WITH DEXTROSE PROLOTHERAPY
Ross Hauser, M.D.

For over forty years, Dr. Hemwall used simple dextrose or corn sugar as his main proliferant. He had an international following, as people would fly in from all over the world to get Dextrose Prolotherapy from him. I have resisted the temptation to change his technique because frankly it works! He hired me as the person to take over his practice and I consider it ‘a higher calling’. Modern medicine is always changing surgeries, drugs, and treatment regime for the primary reason that current treatments don’t work well. I am here to tell you that Hemwall Hackett Dextrose Prolotherapy works, it is only now that Univeristy-affiliated researchers are realizing its potential.

The following is taken from www.internalmedicinenews.com, their June 1, 2007 issue. It is in the Rheumatology clinical rounds sections. Page 31 if you must know. The article notes:

Hyperosmolar dextrose injected into ailing tendons may cause tissue damage that triggers a healing response, reported Michael Ryan, a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Mr. Ryan and his coinvestigators have previously reported good to excellent outcomes with this approach, known as prolotherapy, in treating both infrapatellar and Achilles tendinopathies.

He reported on their most recent pilot investigation into the treatment of chronic plantar fasciitis at the joint annual meeting of the Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine and the Association Québécoise des Médecins du Sport.

The study involved 23 patients with chronic plantar fasciitis (average duration, 28 months) who had failed conservative treatment. Their level of dysfunction was extremely high—some of them could not walk without a walking boot.

The patients' injured plantar fasciae, seen on ultrasound, had the characteristic features of anechoic foci, neovascularity, hypoechogenic regions, and calcification/cortical defects, Mr. Ryan reported. The investigators injected a 50% dextrose solution diluted with 2% lignocaine into painful sites and anechoic clefts/tears using a 27-gauge needle under ultrasound guidance.

The patients received an average of five injections 6 weeks apart, for an average treatment duration of 33 weeks. After treatment, 14 patients reported good to excellent results, with 12 reporting complete symptom resolution and return to function.

These clinical outcomes corresponded to structural improvements seen on ultrasound, including a reduction in the number of intrasubstance tears (from 7 to 2), hypoechoic areas (from 10 to 3), calcifications (from 7 to 1), and neovascularities (from 2 to 0).

It is interesting that researchers sometimes speculate how Prolotherapy works and they sometimes talk about Prolotherapy injuring the area. Basically they miss the point. PROLOTHERAPY SIMULATES WHAT HAPPENS IN AN INJURY. SUGAR IS RELEASED FROM CELLS THAT BURST. IN THIS INSTANCE SUGAR IS INJECTED INTO THE AREA. Various responses happen after the sugar is released but the main reason healing occurs is because fibroblasts which make collagen (yes the collagen in infrapatellar tendons and Achilles Tendon) proliferate. Biopsies on animals and humans confirm that Dextrose Prolotherapy causes fibroblasts to come to the injured area and stimulate repair.

In the above study they proved it by ultrasounds. They could see the repair. The repair occurred over five Prolotherapy treatments. For those injuries that didn’t repair it is probable that Prolotherapy with stronger solutions could have induced the repair. This could include solutions like sodium morrhuate, human growth hormone (HGH) or platelet enriched plasma. This study had a cure rate of about 50% for these chronic, chronic case using the simplest of the Prolotherapy solutions. One would expect a cure rate of around 80 to 85% if stronger solutions were used on resistant cases. Some of the interesting results were that Prolotherapy induced new blood flow to the areas, reduced calcifications and could completely heal tears. Awesome! But stuff Dr. Hemwall knew 50 years ago and I knew 15 years ago! Glad that this information is so new!