Your options for treating joint pain
Joint pain can alter your activities, mood, and even your relationships. Imagine living pain-free without surgery or medication.
We help joint pain conditions using whole health treatments and regenerative therapies, such as prolotherapy and platelet-rich plasma therapy.
About joint pain, and your options:
Mild to crippling pain can be caused by a structure-altering trauma, a simple sports injury, an accumulation of small traumas, repetitive motion, joint-tissue degradation due to age or stress, or any combination of these factors. Any damage that destabilizes a joint gets worse over time, often becoming arthritis. Pain may affect your work and play, sleep, motivation, and energy. Reducing joint pain may free you up to be more active, and more healthy overall.
Prolotherapy, Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP), and other regenerative therapies can often eliminate joint pain.
Joint-pain conditions respond to regenerative treatments (including prolotherapy, platelet-rich plasma and stem cell therapy) in upper and lower back pain, sacroiliac pain, sciatica, neck pain, TMJ pain, sternum and clavicle pain, rotator cuff injuries, tennis and golfer’s elbow, carpal tunnel, hip and groin pain, knee pain, arthritic joints, torn or damaged cartilage, ankle sprains, Achilles pain, and plantar fasciitis.
Naturopathic Physicians Group has been applying these physical medicine modalities to treat pain for more than 20 years.
Regenerative medicine can benefit anyone with joint pain. It is less invasive, less costly, delivers quicker results, and requires minimal recovery. Elite athletes and active people take advantage of these non-surgical regenerative treatments to get back in action faster and stronger, and to prevent small injuries from becoming more serious.
- Prolotherapy is a highly effective method of treating joint pain. To stabilize the joint capsule, rebuild collagen, strengthen and repair ligaments and relieve pain, injured tissues are infused with a nutrient solution of glucose, vitamin B12 and lidocaine; glucosamine may be added to increase stimulation. Generally, 3-6 treatments provide full resolution; the number of initial treatments and annual tune-up treatments depend on the severity of the damage.
- Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy concentrates your platelets that are then injected into ligaments and joints to heal moderate to severe joint degeneration, cartilage tears and arthritis damage. PRP provides stronger healing stimulation than prolotherapy. When pain is combined with joint inflammation, we often start with 1-2 prolotherapy treatments, followed by 2-3 PRP treatments.
- Stem Cell therapy heals injured joint tissues, degenerative joint conditions and musculoskeletal disorders, including osteoarthritis. The stem cells and their associated growth factors are extracted from a patient’s own adipose (fatty) tissue. Stem cells will develop into bone, cartilage and tendon cells as needed, regenerating new tissue to replace what’s been damaged. The growth factors decrease inflammation, kill microbes and trigger growth of new connective tissue and blood vessel cells.
Every joint in the body has ligaments, tendons and cartilage that can be traumatized and produce pain. We specialize in restoring musculoskeletal function. Pain-free joint movement starts with healthy ligaments, which are too often missing from orthopedic evaluations. Our physical exams identify injured ligaments, essential to effective treatment.
We apply a progression of advanced regenerative medicine, beginning with the simplest, prolotherapy. Where we want a stronger effect, we use your own blood cells to make platelet-rich plasma (PRP). For serious or advanced cases, we will use your own stem cells to rebuild healthy tissue.
These therapies concentrate your body’s own healing compounds to stimulate natural healing processes, accelerating repair of damaged joint tissue, regenerating healthy tissue and restoring full function. To treat aggravating conditions, we may offer nutrient infusions and detoxification.
Most of our new patients have been to orthopedic surgeons and physical therapy. We are confident that these pain syndromes can be repaired with naturopathic medical care, bioidentical hormone therapy, prolotherapy, and exercise.