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Morton's Neuroma
Robert Filice, M.D. Former staff physician
Today I treated a 43 year old woman for the seventh time, initiating
treatment in the right foot. She had presented with bilateral foot (left
worse than right) and right arm symptoms in late January of 2006 with a
prior diagnosis of
Morton's
Neuroma. She worked at a
computer and also had aching and weakness in her
arm. She has now had 6
Prolotherapy
treatments to the left foot with 80% improvement in symptoms.
Morton's Neuroma can be due to entrapment of the nerve in the foot, and
can cause pain, numbness, or burning in the foot. The neuroma was
between the third and fourth metatarsal bones, and she had a smaller
problem in the same location in the right foot. In her case, it started
10 years ago on the left, and initially the symptoms were only present
when she wore a particular pair of shoes.
Prior unsuccessful treatments included acupuncture, orthotics,
massage,
physical therapy, and surgery. Our feeling is that neuroma symptoms
often actually originate from dysfunctional ligaments in the area of the
neuroma, rather than arising from the nerve itself. This was apparently
true in this case because of her outstanding response to Prolotherapy.
Although prolo is intended to work on ligaments and tendons, when we are
working in an area of nerve involvement or entrapment, we always use
added procaine in the prolo solution. This has a beneficial effect on
dysfunctional nerve tissue. She also obtained 95% relief of arm weakness
and pain after 6 Prolotherapy treatments to the right elbow. Symptoms
often attributed to carpal tunnel more often arise from the tendons and
ligaments in the elbow, especially in those who work at a keyboard all
day, like this patient. Her new goal now is to attain similar results
for the symptoms in her right foot.
There are many patients who have "struck out" attempting to obtain
relief from multiple treatment modalities as this patient did. If that
is also you, you owe it to yourself to consider getting prolotherapy.
See us for an evaluation and possible treatment. |