You Don't Have to Live With Chronic Pain

Kathy Stevens, who has been training my dogs for years, is a battle-scarred veteran of the war against chronic pain. Kathy injured her back when she fell from a ladder in 1996. As a result of her injury, she lost the feeling in her legs for four weeks. When sensation did return, she almost wished it hadn’t. She suffered intense pain that deprived her of sleep and interfered with her ability to do her job. Her legs were so weak that at times they would simply give out from under her.

She went through the usual merry-go-round of treatments with painkillers, physical therapy, and even a high-tech procedure called thermocoagulation in which a hot needle was inserted into her lumbar spine to shrink a swollen disc. But none of these relieved her pain, so after “living with it” for a year, she consulted an orthopedic surgeon who advised her to have the damaged disc removed. When she mentioned to me that she was contemplating surgery, I urged her to first try prolotherapy, a nonsurgical intervention that eliminates pain by addressing the underlying cause: weakened ligaments and tendons.

Kathy came to the Whitaker Wellness Institute once a month for four months for prolotherapy. By the third month her pain had lessened considerably, and after her fourth treatment, she had regained much of the strength in her legs. Today she exercises on a treadmill, sits through movies without suffering pain, and has no trouble keeping up with her dogs.

— from Health & Healing by Julian Whitaker, MD