By Stephanie on Saturday, February 24, 2001 - 08:42 pm:

Help!!I've been cracking my neck for about a year and my mom has tried to get me to stop however being as stubborn as the 13 year old I am I refused.However recently my neck burns,my arm hurts,and there is a spasm above my shoulder bone.After much research I learned about prolotherapy, and it sounds appealing but I'm concerned that the injections may hurt and I also don't do well with shots.Could anyone tell me if I won't be able to handle the therapy or how painful it is?

By Park Griffin on Tuesday, March 06, 2001 - 11:05 am:

Have you seen a doctor for this yet??? Have you told your mom??? If not, you need to so that you can get to the doctor! Prolotherapy is not a diagnostic tool. It is a treatment. You need to have a thorough assesment done to find out what damage you may have done. There is a good chance that your problem may require only minimal intervention to correct. Prolotherapy, while helping many people, is not a first line approach. There many possible conventional treatments that may do just as well. To answer your question, prolotherapy is very painful, but tolerable if you can stay focused and "gut out" the shots. Also, sedatives can be given to ease the pain of the shots. I hoped you learned something from this experience! You are only given one body and just because it doen't hurt the first time you do something doesn't mean that down the road it won't catch up with you. Guess what? This neck cracking of yours may cause you problems again as an adult! You should treat everything like you want it to last forever. Your clothes, your body, your friendships, your life, your brain, etc...

By Christine on Friday, March 09, 2001 - 08:47 am:

Hi there Stephanie.

A couple of things I want to say...

Though Park is right that you should try a conventional treatment method first, don't put it off too long before you see a prolotherapist. You are very wise to have found out about and be considering this treatment. You see, a decent prolo doctor will tell you if your condition does not require prolo but rather a more conventional treatment, whereas a conventional doctor will not be able to tell you if you actually need prolotherapy.

I have been to 2 different prolotherapists - Dr Hauser in Oak Park, Illinois and Dr Dhillon in Adelaide, South Australia. I have also been to two doctors here in Brisbane who dabble in prolo, and I would NOT recommend going to such a doctor, as their knowledge and experience of prolotherapy is limited. I had "total body" prolotherapy from both Drs Hauser and Dhillon. Dr Dhillon's treatment was very painful, but Dr Hauser's was not. The first time I ever received prolo was from Dr Hauser, and I was so terrified. When the treatment commenced, however, I was relieved to find it hardly hurt. I think it depends on the technique of the doctor. Dr Hauser administers the injections very quickly, whereas Dr Dhillon's injections were painfully slow. Though come to think of it, another doctor I saw did slow injections but they didn't hurt much. It must be some other factor of the technique. Dr Hauser also gave me an IV of Demarol, a general anaesthetic that doesn't knock you out but relaxes you. This only has a slight effect on the pain, I feel because 1) I had another injection therapy called neural therapy while under the demarol and that hurt like hell; and 2) I had prolo from Dr H on my jaw one day with no demarol and it still hardly hurt. I am probably going to go back to Dr H, but even if I can only see Dr D it would be worth it with the painful treatments. You do just grin and bear it and know that it makes you so tough you can handle anything that comes your way! And besides, your only problem is your neck (I found this one of the least painful areas for injections) and I found just a few painful injections was not so hard to cope with, it was having them all over my body that made it hard.

And about cracking your neck...this may not necessarily be the cause of your problem, but rather if your neck is able to crack it is an indicator of the type of problem. Cracking is not always bad...most of my joints I have to crack into place or they become too painful. Sometimes you can't help it. But if you are doing it as a 'party trick' or because you get 'addicted' to it, it's bad news. Sometimes my right knee feels stuck and I want to crack it - the way I do this is by kicking the bottom half of my leg and I'll hear the loudest CLUNK you can imagine-but I know I can 'unstick' it with exercises or just by waiting. Last time I clunked it I injured it a bit. However, the urge to click it is so strong, it feels like an addiction. I have to constantly tell myself don't crack your knee, don't crack your knee when I get the urge. So this type of cracking is bad. Basically I think if you can crack something it is a good indication you need prolotherapy. If you are feeling the need to constantly crack something, then people shouldn't be saying "don't crack it" , they should be looking for why it cracks and the only person I know who does this is a prolotherapist. Long-term cracking is not good for your joints, but sometimes in the short-term you have to do it - to prevent that from becoming long-term prolotherapy treatments may be needed.

I would recommend finding a doctor in the back of Dr Hauser's book "Prolo Your Pain Away".

Christine

By Geri on Friday, March 09, 2001 - 11:14 am:

Christine, Really be careful with your knees! I sometimes feel that it has gone 'wrong' in the joint (if you read earlier) but I only gently extend it to get it to go right again - well in my opinion. Honestly you could really damage your knees by doing that to them. If I do a kick like that by mistake (on the bad leg) the pain is instant and excruciating because it causes the joint to hyperextend and then some, which puts pressure on the (in my case) already damgmaged ligaments. I'm not an expert or anything but I really had to write to tell you to be so careful, try to fix it gently if possible.

By Christine on Saturday, March 10, 2001 - 02:03 am:

Thanks Geri...I have realised that the hard way... as I said I now 'fix' it with exercise (contracting the VMO muscle works for me) or just patience. I was just trying to make the point that there is a difference between joints that you need to gently click and others that you forcefully click because you crave the sensation. I used to do it every day for ages after my knee operation - it felt like it had healed in the wrong place and it was the only way I could make it feel better. In fact if I didn't do the kick, then it would just happen spontaneously when I was walking and it would hurt so much more. I haven't done it for ages and ages and the other week my knee was frustrating me so much I just went what the heck and kicked it out. It hurt so much and felt damaged for a couple of days and that part of my knee wouldn't take any weight. So I will never do it again but sometimes it is hard to resist the urge, even though I know the consequences, because it is so strong.