Hip Issues Boston

Dr. Franchi has found prolotherapy to be an effective treatment for the following conditions of the hip. Arthritis and certain tears of the labrum, as well as hip flexor tendons and groin strains. When treated over a period of five weeks, 80% of our patients found that we have alleviated their pain.

Your hip joint supports your body’s weight and facilitates the movement of the upper leg. The hip’s structure provides the range of motion needed to climb the stairs, drive, and perform other daily activities. Thus, damage to the ligaments, tendons, muscles, cartilage, and other parts of the hip joint results in physical limitations.

Some common hip issues include the following.

Arthritis

Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are the prevalent forms of hip arthritis. Osteoarthritis results from wear and tear in the hip joint.

Slippery tissue named articular cartilage covers the hip joint and reduces friction between the bones, so you don’t feel pain as you move about. As the cartilage slowly deteriorates, your motion becomes limited, and you feel like your hip is stiff. The discomfort worsens when you stand for a long time or walk long distances. Other symptoms include swelling, grating sensation, and tenderness.

If you have rheumatoid arthritis or any other form of inflammatory arthritis, your body’s immune system attacks the protective lining around the joint, called the synovium. Then, fluid accumulates in the hip joint, resulting in pain and swelling. Rheumatoid arthritis causes hip problems among younger people.

Avascular Necrosis

Avascular necrosis of the hip occurs when blood supply to the joint is interrupted. Without sufficient nourishment, the bone in the femur’s head dies and slowly collapses. Also, the articular cartilage wears down and can even collapse and result in disabling arthritis.

Injuries like hip fractures and hip dislocations can also damage nearby blood vessels and restrict blood supply to the hip joint. Other risk factors include long-term corticosteroid use, excessive alcohol intake, and medical conditions like sickle cell disease.

Hip pain is often the first symptom of avascular necrosis. You may feel a dull ache in the buttock or groin area, which worsens as you move around.

Hip Pointer

Athletes who engage in contact sports like hockey and football often injure their iliac crest, the curved part of the pelvis commonly called the hipbone. A hip pointer typically results from a hard fall or a direct blow to the hip and may cause severe pain. The discomfort is aggravated by deep breathing, coughing, walking, or running.

Bursitis

Hip bursitis is the painful swelling of the bursae in your hip joint. These fluid-filled sacs sit between soft tissue and bones and reduce friction during movement. When the bursae become irritated due to injury or strains, you feel pain that worsens with activity.

Bursitis is prevalent among athletes in sports that require a lot of running, such as soccer and football. You may feel pain when you lie on the affected side or walk up the stairs. Treatment goals for bursitis include reducing inflammation and pain and preserving mobility.

Prolotherapy for Hip Issues in Boston

In many cases, medication and home remedies only offer short-term relief for hip pain. This is mainly because conservative treatments do not address the deterioration of cartilage, tendons, and ligaments causing hip pain.

Prolotherapy is an effective treatment for tendon and ligament tearing. This regenerative treatment involves the injection of an irritant to the hip joint to kickstart the body’s natural healing process. The treatment is an alternative to surgery or long-term medications among people suffering from degenerative conditions like arthritis, bursitis, impingement, and labral tears.

Is your hip pain intolerable? Contact Boston Prolotherapy & Orthopedics today for more hip pain and prolotherapy information.

Hip Pain in Boston
Hip Surgery in Boston

Joint Instability

Dr. Franchi discusseshow Prolotherapy works to stabilize different ligaments and tendons that can cause joint instability.

Elbow Issues

Ted Johnson came to Boston Prolotherapy because he had a painful lateral epicondylitis, more commonly known as tennis elbow. He received five treatments and is now back to lifting weights, as he did before. As you know Ted Johnson is in great shape and it was affecting his weight lifting. He is now pain free. Ted also had a back problem. He had sacroiliac instability and he was having difficulty lifting, doing dead lifts. Dr. Franchi treated him with five injections. Sacroiliac instability is caused by a torn ligament and once you get the injections, and the ligament heals, it stabilizes the joint. He is now pain free and back to doing his regular routine.

What Prolotherapy Can’t Treat

There are some joints in the body that Dr. Franchi can’t treat. Certain joints, for instance, the small toes and parts of the fingers, cannot be treated because the joints are so small that it is impossible to get sufficient solution into these smaller joints. Dr. Franchi iterates that prolotherapy is only effective for torn ligaments, tendons and arthritis. It is not for torn muscles, fibromyalgia or nerve pain. There is also one specific joint in the hand that Dr. Franchi gets quite a few calls for that he can treat. That is the muscle at the base of the thumbs. These days when people are doing computer work, are developing arthritis. Cell phones are starting to cause this as well. Prolotherapy is very effective for this condition.

Prolotherapy For Plantar Fasciitis

One of the most common problems that people come to me for is plantar fasciitis. Many people in middle age start to develop slight falling of their arches. This is due to deterioration of ligaments in the arch. The plantar fascia is the major ligament. The plantar fascia can develop micro tears, sometimes major tears. Plantar fasciitis can be very painful, especially in the morning when you get out of bed. My technique for treating this is a little more painful than the other problems people usually have. Therefore, when the patient comes in, I usually apply an ice pack to the heel before I give the injection. This lessens the pain of the injection and makes the procedure much easier.

Prolotherapy Effectiveness

Prolotherapy originated on the west coast of United States and is slowly moving here to New England. You’re finding more and more articles in newspapers about prolotherapy and there’s more and more research being done about prolotherapy. For over 25 years, the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine has been giving lectures about prolotherapy and teaching the techniques involved in treating their patients.

I think what happened originally is that most aches and pains were diagnosed as tendinitis – as an inflammatory process – and most doctors easily treated these tendons and tendinitis by giving cortisone injections and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories which temporarily eased the pain but after a few weeks the pain returned. This left some doctors like myself scratching their heads.

So when I went to the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine’s annual meeting, there were lectures on prolotherapy and I was taught there that the inflammatory process is actually a reparative process which has been known in modern medicine for a long time. And that for acute injuries and for chronic injuries anti-inflammatories are actually contraindicated.

Dr. Hackett developed a theory and practice of treating these injuries by actually causing a rejuvenation of the inflammatory process. This restarts the healing process and then gives a permanent solution to these aches and pains. Because once the tissue is repaired, the pain goes away.

Sports Injuries, Arthritis and General Pain Management

I was treating these injuries, many times with cortisone, and it was not successful. So I heard lectures on prolotherapy, I put that in the back of my mind but for patients that did not get better I started to use this technique. And to my surprise, I started to get very good results.

I’ve had better success rates with prolotherapy. Over 80 to 85% of the people that I’ve treated with prolotherapy have improved significantly. Some have become complete pain relief.

Prolotherapy effectiveness for ankles and feet and any joint of the body that is held together with ligaments where that can be damaged ligaments, for instance plantar fasciitis, prolotherapy is an excellent treatment.

As long as you’re a healthy human being, non-smoker and have no auto-immune problems, prolotherapy is 85% effective.

In the case of arthritis, the joint service is starting to deteriorate and prolotherapy can help rebuild that joint service and alleviate pain.

Will Prolotherapy Give Instant Relief

People want to know if they’re going to get instant relief from Prolotherapy and I tell them, usually not. Everybody responds at a different time rate. Usually the treatment is either one injection each week for three weeks or possibly five weeks. During that period of time they may show some improvement. The real improvement comes, usually, six weeks after the last injection. So this is a two-three month process. Most people are willing to undergo this process because they get a long-term result. Recently I saw someone that I eight years ago for tennis elbow, and the treatment has lasted this entire time.

How Long Until Results Are Realized?

How long until someone has pain relief with a prolotherapy treatment?

Pain relief varies quite a bit, depending on the patient. Some patients get an immediate response. I had a Division I hockey player who hadn’t played hockey for six months due to lower back pain. I gave him one prolotherapy injection. He came back to me a week later for the second injection. I asked him if he had any pain. He said, “Doc, I feel fine.” I said go ahead and skate. He came back a week later, he still felt fine. I only gave him one injection and he got relief. Now, this is not typical for prolotherapy. Usually it takes three to five injections; some people start to feel some relief during the injection process. However, you can’t be sure it works until you wait a full eight weeks after the last injection.

Does The Pain Come Back After Treatments?

Years after prolotherapy treatment, 5-10 years

I warn my patients that the pain can come back. And I’m not hedging on this. But what we’re doing is repairing the tendon with scar tissue.

The body likes to reabsorb scar tissue. Like when you get a cut, it gets smaller and smaller over time. I’ve had some people come back, long distance runners, a year-and-a-half or two years later, and say my back is starting to hurt again. I give them some injections, usually two or three, and they’re good for another year or two.

So who wouldn’t trade getting a couple of injections to get a year or two of freedom from your back pain? So, yes, some people do come back to me, but it’s usually a year or two later. Or it’s for another problem. Their ankle is fine but now their shoulder hurts.