Knee Pain In The
Senior Golfer

From our radio show

Question: I play a lot of golf and have been having a problem with my left knee, the pain comes and goes. I am over 50.

Dr. Darrow: This is typical in older golfers because when they were younger, they were taught to keep their feet parallel in their swing and then roll over the heel of their left foot. It's not taught like that today because that technique puts great stress on the knee and ankle. Today there is more of a theory of opening up the left foot even to 45 or 90 degree angle so that during the follow through there is less stress placed on the left leg.

We use to do something called a “Reverse C,” where we would throw our heads way back, that was popular 20-30 years ago, and what that would do is torque the whole body and golfers would suffer from terrible back problems, terrible knee pain, terrible ankle pain, terrible foot pain.

We teach our patient golfers to open up that knee and prevent those problems. The nice thing about Prolotherapy is that it really helps with knee pain. It takes three four injections and typically we can help that pain.
 

Chondromalacia patella

From our radio show
 

Question: I am having some inflammation and knee pain after working out, I am 52.

Dr. Darrow: At 52 the Collagen in the body starts breaking down, actually it starts in our 40's and even younger but we start to notice it in our 40's as we start getting wrinkles around our eyes and on our faces.

As we see in the skin on our faces, the collagen in our knees starts to go and as we continue to work out there is obviously a stress on the joint.

Most knee pain that we see is called Chondromalacia patella. Malacia means break down, condro means cartilage, patella means the back of the knee bone, which is called the patella, (and there) is the thickest cartilage in the body. It starts rubbing the wrong way against the tract that it slides in and with repetitive use like running or stair climbing, things of that nature, any sport really, the repetitive use just wears out the back of that knee cap and begins the arthritis process and pain.

It is also made worse when you are sitting in a movie theater or you are in an airplane and stuck in one place for a long period of time. Often times people can have a little meniscus tear, the meniscus is a little cushion inside the knee. Prolotherapy helps grow back all of this tissue.

Before you decide on surgery, explore Prolotherapy, because of all the things Prolotherapy woks on, it works fastest in the knees.
 

Knee Replacement

From our radio show

Question: I have a knee that a couple doctors told that I should have a knee replacement surgery. It is pretty swollen and sore, I sure would like to avoid the knee surgery.

Dr. Darrow: With this process of Prolotherapy there is a very good chance of building up enough Collagen and cartilage so that you can walk around, hopefully pain free after a few series of injections. Surgery is something, it seems to me, that is something that should be the last option.
 

ACL Problems

From our radio show

Question: I have a question about my husband, he is 35, and about 3 years ago he had to have his ACL repaired, on both knees. He had played soccer for many years, he had two different surgeries, and actually his right knee has given him more problems than the other one.

Dr. Darrow: The ACL is the anterior cruciate ligament and what is does is keep the thigh bone from slipping off of the leg bone. It is really painful when it rips. Caller if you were around your husband when it ripped you would have seen it blow up like a balloon.

CALLER: It did, it got enormous and we rushed him to urgent care, to have surgery a couple of days later. Now he has had two surgeries on the same knee and he is still in quite a lot of pain.

Dr. Darrow: This was the right knee, what happened to the left knee?

CALLER: The left knee at the time when the right knee blew up, he went to an orthopedic surgeon who evaluated both of his knees and also determined that the left knee had a small tear in it as well.

Dr. Darrow: Many athletes and most couch potatoes live without an ACL, you don't need an ACL to do sports, it is crazy to do an ACL (procedure) two days after an injury, all the studies show that people get much, much better if they wait a few months and the knee calms down. I would bet you today that your husband's knees are not that great. We have people coming in all the time after their surgeries, that we need to fix up with Prolotherapy and the Prolotherapy does fix them up. The problem is if they had not had the surgery to begin with, then Prolotherapy could have healed them up anyway. Now a complete ligament tear, I cannot make the tear synapse back together, but it sounds like his other knee, his left knee had a partial tear and Prolotherapy could certainly tighten that knee up without any type of surgery.

Usually after a surgery, then another surgery, the you start getting pretty close to arthritis.

The good news is that the knee is the fastest part of the body to heal. We have had so many knees limp in with bone-on-bone arthritis, ready for surgery, and they are pain-free now.