Sugar water injections may help ease knee pain
NEW YORK – Knee pain appears to decrease up to one year after “prolotherapy,” a series of sugar water injections at the site of the pain, according to a new study.
Previous research on the therapy that suggested positive effects was plagued by flaws, but the new report may be more reliable, according to Dr. John D. Loeser, a pain specialist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“This is a well-performed clinical trial that deals with many of the issues that have clouded prior reports of prolotherapy,” Loeser, who was not involved in the study and has spoken out against the practice in the past, told Reuters Health in an email.
Knee osteoarthritis is common, especially among people over 65, but no single therapy has proven particularly beneficial.
In prolotherapy, which costs US$200 (S$252) to US$1000 per session and is not covered by Medicare, small amounts of solution are injected at multiple painful ligament and tendon locations in the knee over several sessions. The hope is that a new minor irritation will stimulate the body to repair both old damage and new.
“The idea is to stimulate a local healing reaction,” lead author Dr. David Rabago, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, told Reuters Health.
Rabago and his colleagues divided 90 people with knee osteoarthritis and between ages 40 and 76 years old into three groups: one got sugar-water prolotherapy injections, another got salt-water placebo injections, and the third was instructed in at-home exercise and received no injections.
The first two groups got injections at least three times, sometimes more if they asked for it, over 17 weeks, and were followed for one year.
The sugar water group reported better knee function, improving 16 points on a 100-point scale of osteoarthritis severity, compared to 5 points for saline and 7 points for the exercise group.
The sugar water group also reported less frequent and less severe pain, improving 14 points on the same scale, at one year, while the salt water and exercise groups improved 7 points and 9 points, respectively.
The study was small but not too small and included the right type of subjects: typical sufferers of knee osteoarthritis, researchers said.
Source: Reuters
Category: Features, Wellness and Complementary Therapies
