Neural Prolotherapy is a new technique used to alleviate nerve pain. A number of injuries to the muscles, tissues, or body structure can benefit from the regenerative therapy. It consists of shallow injections of a sugar solution into the skin around the affected nerves. The general idea of injecting such a solution into the body to reduce inflammation has been around for several decades to heal injured ligaments and joints. The procedure was recently adopted and applied to treat general nerve pain. There are few side effects, and patients typically report immediate relief from symptoms, although repeat treatments are needed for permanent change.

When the tissue in the body is harmed during an injury, it releases inflammatory substances that cause pain, sensitivity, and swelling. The process is a way of making a person aware that they have an injury that needs to be treated. Unfortunately, sometimes the inflammation keeps healing from taking place and develops into chronic pain. Some doctors noticed that when a solution of plant-derived sugar mixed with sterile water was injected into the injury site, the solution adhered to the tissue and kept the substances that caused swelling from releasing. That, in tern, kept swelling from happening, so pain and sensitivity reduced and mobility increased, allowing the patient to heal and resume daily activities.

Neural prolotherapy evolved from traditional prolotherapy. In the traditional method, the sugar solution is injected deep into the joints, ligaments, and connective tissues. Since the nerves are the same, doctors began looking into using the same methods in a different location to treat other kinds of pain. With the new method, the sugar solution is injected with a much smaller needle, shallowly into the skin. The procedure is less invasive and can often be performed with little or no local anesthesia.

The treatment typically only causes mild discomfort, due to the needle injections. When it is properly administered by a trained professional, there are few side effects and it is considered safe. On rare occasions, mild temporary pain, bruising, or local swelling could occur. While relief is often immediate, results from first treatment can last a few hours to a few days. Often, the procedure needs to be performed in repeat sessions for a few weeks in order to truly heal.

It is also important for your doctor to understand and diagnose the underlying cause for the nerve pain and treat those symptoms as needed to aid the overall health of the body and prevent a recurrence of the same pain, or other problems from manifesting. For mechanical issues, osteopathic manipulation can sometimes help restore function.

Injuries and conditions involving damage to joints, ligaments, muscles, and tendons can benefit from neural prolotherapy. It is most popularly used to treat nerve pain to major joint areas of the body, such as the back, shoulder, hip, knee, neck, elbow, hand, wrist, ankle, and foot. Patients that have undergone knee or back surgery and suffer chronic pain that can't be relieved through other methods can also benefit from the procedure. When other methods do not help, calming the nerves so the tissue can heal through neural prolotherapy could be the answer.