Athletes and Weekend Warriors

Torn Tendons and Ligaments: Athletes and Weekend Warriors

What are some of the sports of the athletes you’ve treated?

I’ve used prolotherapy to treat everyone from world-class judo competitors, to professional hockey players, to intercollegiate athletes playing football, basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, tennis, golf, track and field, weightlifters, strong men. Virtually any sport where you’ve have an injury that’s lagging on and not healing can be treated with prolotherapy. I had a professional golfer come to me recently and I was able to solve his problem with prolotherapy. Acute injuries can also heal faster using prolotherapy as part of the treatment plan, along with a good physical therapy program.

If an athlete is having difficulty recovering from an injury, and surgery is in the near future, is prolotherapy a better option for them?

Yes. Prolotherapy is an excellent alternative to surgery. Sometimes surgery is required for very serious injuries. But other times it’s optional. Prolotherapy can be very effective for anterior shoulder dislocations, rotator cuff tears, chronic elbow pain due to tennis elbow, planter fasciitis, in which you try to avoid surgery as much as possible. Prolotherapy can be used to treat these injuries, avoid the surgery and avoid the rehabilitation and lengthy recovery time that’s required after surgery.

I have issues with my lower back that’s been bothering me for years. Would I be a good candidate for prolotherapy ?

Yes. Prolotherapy is an excellent treatment for lower back pain. If you have point tenderness in your lower back. If you have difficulty getting out of a chair. If you have difficulty standing for long periods of time. This may be due to sacroiliac instability, which is a very common, and much overlooked, cause of lower back pain. I have treated literally 100’s of people with this condition, and 80-90%of them have had their back pain go away.

What are the basic causes of joint pain and how can prolotherapy treat them?

The basic causes of joint pain are due to instability of the joint. If we injure our body when we’re young, and we injure a ligament that has not healed properly, the joint doesn’t work properly. The alignment is out. Also, as we get older, the ligaments that hold the joint together thin out, become weak, and sometimes tear. Again, this causes the joint to not work properly. With prolotherapy, you actually cause the ligaments to be repaired. You tighten the joint. So that it operates properly, and the pain goes away.

Second Opinions

Dr. Franchi – why should people seek a second opinion when they have been advised that they need to have a total joint replacement as a result of Osteoarthritis?

Often there is more than one cause to pain which is overlooked. For example, the diagnosis of lower back pain is complex and often there is more than one cause for your pain - and sometimes the secondary cause can be overlooked. For instance, often people are told they have lower back pain from a herniated disk, however their symptoms don’t match the findings of the MRI. This is most commonly found with SacroiIliac Instability which can be treated with prolotherapy.

Another common misdiagnosis – people are told their symptoms are from a meniscus or a labral tear, when the real cause is underlying arthritis. This is most common with shoulders, knees and hips. If this is the issue, it can be treated with prolotherapy.

In both these examples, surgery will not help and, in fact, can do more damage.

Prolotherapy For Groin Strains

Another common problem is groin strains. I am the team physician for Bentley College and they have a Division I hockey team. Therefore, there are a lot of groin strains that occur in hockey players. Sometimes they can be very debilitating. Also for the soccer players. Prolotherapy is very effective for groin strains. Usually it takes three injections. The injections have to be placed precisely at the insertion of the adductor muscles to the pubic bone area. With the patients we’ve seen, we’ve seen an 80% to 90% success rate. Usually the athlete can return to the sport within a couple of weeks.

Pubic Instability

Dr. Franchi discusses how Prolotherapy works to help women with this post-partum condition.

Prolotherapy For Hyper Flexible Joints

There is a special group of people who are also candidates for prolotherapy – people who have hyper flexible joints. Their joints are so loose that they become unstable. Sometimes they dislocate their shoulders. Sometimes they dislocate their knee caps. Sometimes they dislocated their fingers. And, they often have chronic ankle sprains. If you have a chronic instability of any joint, ankle, knee, elbow, fingers, wrists, shoulders, prolotherapy is extremely effective in helping to stabilize these joints, and, by doing so, will relieve your pain.

When Should An Athlete Look To Get Treatment?

Athletes and Prolotherapy

Would you recommend an athlete do this in their off-season?

Oh yes. What you want to do with prolotherapy is give it time to heal. However, I’ve treated people in season. If they are still capable of playing and have just minor or moderate amounts of pain and I don’t think there’s any danger, I tell them to continue participating… which is really very good. Because when you get a cortisone injection, playing is really contraindicated, because you may rupture a tendon.

Dr. Franchi Discussing How it Feels to Help His Patients

I receive tremendous personal satisfaction receiving grateful thank-you notes from patients who, three months prior, were absolutely miserable, and now are out of pain, walking without a cane, even running the Boston Marathon. It’s enough to know that my patients sleep better at night as they are no longer waking up because of their pain.

Who Should You Choose For Your Treatment

One common question I get is, “How do you know where to put the injection?” I have had the advantage of being an orthopedic surgeon. Because of this, I’ve seen the inside of the body and don’t just look at it from the outside of the body. After doing this for over 30 years, I have a very good knowledge of the anatomy. If you’re going to receive these injections, it’s very important that they be done by someone who is familiar with the anatomy and knows the precise area to place the injection.

Long Distance Therapy

Time Between Prolotherapy Treatments

Where do your patients come from?

My prolotherapy patients hail from all over in New England, and some from New York and New Jersey. I’ve had patients travel from other states, but mostly my practice is in the New England area.

If travel is an issue for your patients, and they can’t make it each week, are there alternatives?

Yes. We can set up a schedule where I set up a more intensive treatment which requires more injections in the one office visit. So we can cut down the amount of travel time that’s needed.