Most of us know someone who has some form of chronic pain like knee or lower back problems. Many times surgery is recommended.
But one Central Texas doctor is offering a natural, sweet solution to a painful problem.
Holly Chacona, 50, is happy to be back on the tennis court again. Chronic knee pain kept her sidelined her for months.
"I couldn't go up and down stairs. I couldn't play. I would go out and play for maybe an hour, but afterwards I would be totally gimpy,” Chacona said.
She had arthroscopic surgery, but relief from that was only temporary.
Then she heard about an alternative therapy called prolotherapy. It uses sugar water as a way to permanently heal her knee problems.
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Pain free
Sugar water is being used to keep some patients pain free.
 
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"It sounds kind of strange, sounds like it might be a placebo,” said Dr. Brad Fullerton, a rehabilitation physician.
The treatment was anything but a placebo for Holly. Two rounds of prolotherapy and she was pain-free.
The sugar water stimulates her own body's ability to repair painful ligaments and tendons.
"You're injecting it in several different spots to promote healing. You're basically creating an artificial injury without actually creating an injury, you're not tearing fibers, cutting fibers," Fullerton said.
It's contrary to what most of us think, but with prolotherapy, Fullerton said taking anti-inflammatories can actually stop the healing process.
"Those of us who do prolotherapy are convinced now that that's not always the right thing to do. It may cause the healing to be incomplete more often,” Fullerton said.
Now Chacona spreads the word about prolotherapy to her other tennis buddies who have similar injuries.
"To me, it's changed my life,” she said.
