SHOULDER ARTHRITIS
CALLER: I have had a pretty bad banged up shoulder and wrist from years of playing basketball and I probably have the onset of arthritis going on in there as well as bursitis too. I was wonder how Prolotherapy would help?

Dr. Darrow: Well it is a very simple answer that I have, any kind of overuse syndrome, especially in sports like Basketball where you are constantly throwing your arms out (too defend) and to throw that ball as far as you can. When you throw the arm out, there is an end point so there is a snapping motion in the shoulder that takes place, and that wears down a lot of the tissues in the superspinatus tendon which comes out of one of the back muscles and holds the rotator cuff together. That is the cuff that surrounds the shoulder. What we do is inject into the shoulder where it is causing pain and what (Prolotherapy) does is rebuild a lot of that tissue. It is a very, very common injury in all athletes especially in those playing basketball, baseball, swimmers, weight lifters where overhand motion is needed. We get all kind of athletes and the weekend warrior, even for some one who doesn’t do sports, someone who is getting older, there can be a breakdown in the tendon and that can happen from lifting something too quickly, and just happens as we get older. The collagen material that we have in our bodies starts drying out and wearing down so as we age it starts thinning out and it is much easier to be injured.

Injuries for the most part are stretch injuries or wearing out injuries sometimes traumatic injury where you get smashed, (like in contact sports) where the collagen gets damaged.

I think that the chances of your shoulder being healed is like 80-90% with a series of Prolotherapy injections. We would ask that you stop playing basketball while we are healing you up.

You know weekend warriors get the worst injuries it seems because they are not in the best of shape and they go out and blast all of a sudden and they do not have the muscle or tendon strength to do these things.

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