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Patient Stories |
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Need That Knee
This patient injured her knee chasing a rattlesnake. Her job involves taking schoolchildren on nature outings. Seeing a large rattlesnake in the road, she halted the bus and grabbed whatever was at hand, in this case a tire iron, to use for snake-catching. The snake saw her coming and exited the road, ending up
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on the far side of a ditch. The patient jumped the ditch, jamming her knee. She got the snake, but she could barely walk. She came to me several months later, still barely able to walk.
History revealed that she had totally severed her right anterior cruciate ligament in early adulthood. Her knee angled outward slightly. She had many knee injuries through life, mostly athletic, but had always been able to return to full activity--until this one. For several months she had been unable to walk up stairs without severe pain. Walking on a level surface for more than a few steps was significantly painful. Her activities were dramatically curtailed. She lives in rural Arkansas, cutting her own wood, hiking in rough terrain, canoeing, and otherwise living a very physical life. She was afraid that her life would be forever changed by her knee pain.
After 6 Prolotherapy treatments, she is now able to ride her bicycle an unlimited distance on flat roads (15 miles or more at a time) without pain. Her knee angulation has visibly improved. I did advise her to back off a bit on her most extreme physical activities--after all, she is 63 year old--but she can now get back to living her life. Incidentally, she is one of a handful of naturalists who has been funded to head into the deep woods to look for the previously-thought-to-be-extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker. She is going to need that healed knee.
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Prolo Instead of Hip Replacement
This 79 year old patient had not slept for over a year because of hip pain. Pain and limited mobility had been increasing for several years. Her doctor told her that it was time for a hip replacement, and she agreed. But, the day of
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her admission, an EKG showed some heart abnormalities. The surgeon refused to operate, and sent her home to live with her pain. 'Nothing more that he could do', he told her. The mother of one of my other patients told her about Prolotherapy in church one day. She came to see me.
Evaluation showed significant loss of cartilage in the hip, and some surrounding ligament damage, both of which were producing pain. After 4 Prolotherapy treatments, she is sleeping through the night. She can shop, do house work, and play with her grandchildren—all without pain. She is now so glad that she could not have her hip operation.
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Lots of Doctors, Lots of Tests, No Diagnosis, No Help, Lots of Pain
This middle aged man had chest pain, mainly on the left side. He had a major cardiac chest pain workup—twice. He had been hospitalized on several occasions, had multiple imaging studies. |
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'Nothing showed up'. His pain was keeping him awake at night and keeping him from working during the day. This had been going on for several years, and was getting worse. He was getting desperate to get rid of the pain. And he was scared, because no one could figure out what was wrong with him. So, he came to see me.
His history was interesting. He used to be an airplane mechanic. His specialty was the brake system on a particular airplane. The master cylinder for this system was located under the brake pedal on the pilot's floorboard. In order to work on this unit, he had to put his knees on the top of the pilot’s headrest, and his head up under the console, supporting his weight on his chest, which rested on the edge of the pilot’s seat. He did this job for years. On physical examination, he had multiple points of tenderness in the joints between the sternum and the ribs, and pain at the junction of the costal cartilage and the ribs. After 4 Prolotherapy treatments, this pain resolved completely.
This patient was angry that so many tests had been done on him, but no one had ever done a thorough physical examination to see exactly where his pain was arising from. I don’t blame him for feeling that way.
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The Best Doctors, More Tests, No Diagnosis, No Help, Lots of Pain
This patient was a dedicated amateur cyclist. He had gotten a new bike seat and ridden on it twice for some distance. Then the back of his legs started hurting. Badly. He could barely walk. He was losing sleep. He rated his pain
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7-8 out of 10, meaning it interfered significantly with normal activity. He went to his doctor, who could not 'find anything'. He went to more doctors. Some tried a few things, but nothing helped. He went to the Mayo Clinic. He went to Johns Hopkins. He saw 8 physicians, and had a small operation in the area that was hurting (the bottom of both hamstrings). He was no better.
Seven years after he started hurting, he came to see me. The problem was, his pain was not where the problem was. He had something called 'referred pain'. It took me less than three minutes to find the origin of his difficulty—the other end of the muscles, where they inserted into the pubic arch. Those tendons were exquisitely tender, though he did not feel any pain at all in this area. Every previous physician had only examined him where he hurt—none of them considered referred pain, or knew where to look for the source if they had considered this possibility.
After 3 Prolotherapy treatments, his pain is dramatically improved and he is on the way to complete healing. It occurred to me that this simple evaluation and treatment is solving a problem that had mystified some of the best medical minds in the country. Johns Hopkins and Mayo Clinic are the best of the best. As my father, a Harvard-trained surgeon, has said on many occasions, the most dangerous people are those who do not know what they do not know.
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Lots of Pain, Now Lots of Golf
Holley's grandfather is 88 years old. He was complaining of lots of shoulder pain. Until two years ago, he enjoyed playing golf with some regularity, but the shoulder pain had caused him to stop playing. In the meantime, he had also developed some 'heart issues', including |
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having a pacer/defibrillator implanted. He grew up in the mountains and is tough as a boot, but he is beginning to look a little frail. I asked him what he would like to do that the shoulder was preventing him from doing. A one-word reply—Golf. Frankly, looking at him now I wasn't sure he still had the stamina for that one, but his shoulder hurt and I had brought the Prolotherapy equipment with us to their mountain summer home. I treated him one time.
We got a call three weeks later. Upon returning to their home in Amarillo, Tx., he had played a round of golf. Having no pain, he played the next day. And the next. He called, after four rounds of golf in five days, to thank us.
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The Competitive Athlete
A seventeen year old level 10 gymnast (highest level of competition in our state) had dislocated her right elbow a year ago. After rehabbing the elbow and returning to training, she had hyper-extended it again, and was having a lot of pain. She went to see an Orthopedic Surgeon, and she came to see me.
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Competitive athletes require a different strategy for Prolotherapy. Treatments are done on a more frequent basis, and stronger proliferants are used, so that tissue of maximum strength is produced. While activity limitations may be a part of the Prolotherapy process, I allow young athletes to keep training aggressively.
At the time of this patient's 6th and last Prolotherapy treatment, I asked her mother her impression of the progress being made. Her mother said that the Orthopedic Surgeon had offered an operation to 'shore up the joint capsule', along with a tendon transposition. He offered an 80% chance that she would see an 80% pain reduction. She would always have to wear a brace, and would always have some pain, he said.
But, with Prolotherapy treatment, she was out of her brace. At this visit she had mild pain with one maneuver—the catch on the 'reverse giant' (When she described this move, it sounds like it would hurt a normal joint.) Following this treatment, she had no pain at all. As Mom said, with Prolotherapy the results are 'light years ahead' of even the best-case scenario offered by the surgeon. She was understandably delighted.
After a treatment, I always ask people to do what it takes to cause pain and see if the pain has gone away. This way I know that I have gotten proliferant into the correct structures. This is the patient who would do a handstand, then walk around the office on her hands.
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What Our Patients
are Saying...
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Prolotherapy Changed My Life
By Dorothy Gipson
For many years I have experienced pain particularly in the left hip and leg. In the beginning it appeared that I was experiencing some arthritis and then maybe it was |
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fibromyalgia, spinal stenosis and on and on. The string of diagnoses and medications began and continued but the pain was with me daily. I depended on mid-level pain medication just to keep going and try to live a normal life. Even though the pain was so terrible at times, I did not take narcotics because I knew I would be opening myself up to other problems. I learned to work around the pain to the extent that if I had more activity (shopping, traveling etc.) one day then I knew it would take the next day or two to recover.
In December, 2005, the pain in my left leg and hip reached a new level of intensity. Walking or standing made it worse. I was quickly becoming housebound as my church and doctors were about the only places I went. My husband took over most of the household work and chores. I spent a good part each day just trying to make the pain bearable. I contacted the orthopedist that treated me for bursitis of the hip. He ordered an MRI and said I had a problem in the spine that caused all of my pain on the left side. Subsequently I had two epidural injections and neither gave me sustained relief. I was reluctant to submit to surgery even though I knew that was my next step.
In March, 2005, a friend of mine gave me her book, "Prolo Your Pain Away," by Ross Hauser, M.D. I read it and then I searched Prolotherapy on the internet and found Dr. Mark Johnson was a practitioner in Nashville, Tennessee. This was convenient as I live in northern Alabama. I contacted Dr. Johnson and my first visit was in April, 2005. I continued to receive treatments monthly. About two weeks after each treatment I noticed improvement because the pain was less and I could do more in my home. After seven treatments Dr. Johnson has discharged me. Recently I was able to do my grocery shopping without using an electric cart for the first time in many months. I cannot express my joy in being able to once more take charge of my home, do activities my husband and I enjoy, look forward to having my family over for a meal and having an active fun-loving relationship with our granddaughter.
My Medicare and other insurance did not cover any of the cost of the treatments but I consider that the money was well spent because the results have been so beneficial and remarkable.
I prayed to God for relief of my pain and He led me to His children, Holly and Mark Johnson. If I happen to need more treatments at some point in the future, I am so glad that I know who to contact.
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