My Experience With Ozone and Prolotherapy

[John Galt]

Mmglobal asked me to start a thread to share my experience with Ozone.
I've only been treated twice with Ozone for back pain so I can only say so much.
To start with, I have a herniated disk, L4-L5 and it's pressing on a nerve and
causing leg pain. Both legs, into the toes, the worst case. On a scale of 1 to 10
with 10 being the worst, I was about 4. This started in early 2007. Also have DDD
and a annular tear L3-L4, I'm middle-aged.

I tried P.T. which didn't help and also waited a couple years with the hope that
the pain would go away, resorption I believe. No luck there.
Next, I considered a diskectomy but decided to try Prolotherapy first.
Started Prolo in spring of 2010 and had very good results. It reduced my leg pain
alot and I also noticed an improvement in my lumbar. It was like someone
had greased up my back, moving became easier, less pain. I'd say my
scale of pain is still a 1 after two years.

My Prolo doc started using Ozone at the end of 2011.I had one treatment
in December and one in January of this year. Two treatments probably isn't enough
to judge whether or not it's effective, but it may have helped a little with
the leg pain. I need to have more and plan to do so soon.

A link on Ozone that I found informative is a lecture by Dr Frank Shallenberger.
096-2009-08-20--Frank-Shallenberger--Prolozone-chronic-pain-ozone on Vimeo

If I could help anyone who is interested in Prolo or Ozone or needs more
info then please post back.

[mmglobal]

John,, thanks for posting... you are the first patient I've known with the ozone treatment.

Here is a link to an article John posted. I'd like to learn more about the treatment

http://www.ispine.org/forum/abstract...erniation.html

John, can you explain breifly about the treatment. Where and what is injected for Prolo. I thought it was in the ligaments. For the prolo part of the procedure, do they inject the annulus? Disc? I assume that the ozone/oxygen mixture is injected into the disc?

Thanks,

Mark

[John Galt]

Sorry, I may have confused you because the Prolo and the Ozone were administered at different times not together.

For Prolotherapy, my Doctor used Dextrose and Lidacain (sp?) and it's was injected along the spine from the upper lumbar to the sacrum and then across
the illiac crest (both sides). It's alot of needle sticks.
Yes, they do inject Prolo into the ligaments and tendons and near, but not into the discs.

For the two Ozone treatments, they were not injected into the disc as the study that I posted shows. There are doctors like Dr Shallenberger
who feel that it is not necessary to inject into the disk. They inject near the disk and the oxygen will heal up the area.

I believe both of these treatments are valid and hope that people here will investigate them on their own. Prolotherapy, in particular has
helped me rid much of my pain and I believe it should be considered before surgery by a qualified Prolo practioner. Unfortunately,
many doctors and particularly surgeons are biased against Prolotherapy because they are looking at poorly done studies that have
used poor treatment protocols. However, Prolo continues to grow in usage in the U.S. because it works.

A good book on Prolotherapy came out a couple years ago and helped me to learn about it is: Healing Back and Joint Injuries by Dr Valdez

People can also google "Dr Hauser Prolotherapy". Hauser's sites have a lot of Prolo info available.

The downside to these two treatments in the U.S. is that insurance probably won't pay for it and the FDA has not approved the procedures.
That may bother some people but I think that the FDA is corrupt so I don't care about whether or not they approve something but I do
wish that insurance companies would cover it.

Hope this helps

[cicinla]

had a bad sports injury in 2012. after 1 1/2 years of waiting for ligaments in right pelvis to tighten i went to a physiatrist and received prolotherapy and ozone in a few places in butt, side hip and front near hip bone. didn't hurt that much, am not in any more pain now than i usually am so we'll see. my insurance covered prolotherapy (sugar stuff, phenol and something else) but not ozone. $500. Doctor recommended 2 more treatments a month apart.

[mmglobal]

cicinla, welcome to the forum and thanks for posting.

If I understand correctly, you had the treatment TODAY and are not worse from the treatments.

Did insurance cover some of the treatment, but you paid $500 additional for the ozone component?

We'll be VERY interested to hear about how you progress.

GOOD LUCK and thanks again!

Mark

[John Galt]

Happy to hear of your progress cicinla. It's been 2 years since I started this thread and while I haven't received any more Prolo or Ozone injections I still have less pain than before the injections. That's the good news, the bad news is that after this winter I now realize that the cold weather was causing some pain and that means Osteoarthritis (OA). I've suffered many lumbar strains over the past 30 years and that's surely the cause of my OA, due to ligament damage.

If I had Prolo injections right after the injuries, my ligaments would have healed better and I wouldn't have OA today.

Now I'm starting a new thread on an exciting new supp I've found for OA.

(to be continued..............)