Back Pain Relief That Works as Fast - But Lasts Longer - Than Cortisone

Two months ago, I told you about Prolozone®, a tremendous breakthrough in pain management. With Prolozone, we inject an oxygen/ozone gas mixture into painful and inflamed areas. It causes an extremely fast healing response. Now we have proof that this treatment is even better than the standard steroid shot for pain relief.

Each year thousands of Americans are subjected to epidural injections of steroids for low back pain, sciatica, degenerative arthritis, etc. It's sort of a one-size fits all treatment. "You have degeneration, let's shoot it with some steroids." "We'll knock out the pain for you." "Don't worry about the toxicity of the steroids. Just enjoy the pain relief now." That's the mindset of the typical American doctor. Well, leave it to the Italians to show us up.

Italian researchers studied 306 patients - 166 had primarily disc disease and 140 had non-disc vertebral disease. All of them had acute or chronic low back or sciatic pain. The researchers gave them one of two treatments. The first treatment was an X-ray guided injection of an oxygen/ozone gas mixture. This injection went into the area of nerve exit from the spine. The second treatment was the standard injection of steroids around the spinal joints. Neurologists who did not know what injection the patient received (hence the study was blinded) evaluated all of the patients.

There was little difference between the two forms of injection for short-term pain relief. Both worked, with 80% of the patients reporting clear improvement. Most had complete remission of pain at one week.

However, at six months, the gas proved far more effective for those with disc disease. Of 86 patients getting the O2/O3 gas mixture, only 13 (15%) had poor outcomes. The steroid injection group had a 22.5% rate of poor outcomes. Among patients without disk disease, 6 of 70 (8.6%) receiving the gas had a poor outcome. But 21.4% of those getting the steroids had a poor outcome. The oxygen/ozone treatment beat steroids long-term for both disc and non disc pain.

However, for that non-disc pain group, they said the difference was "not statistically significant." What that means is that there was a 10% possibility that ozone's superiority to steroids for non-disc long-term improvement was due only to chance. I know the odds on a craps table. Ozone was clearly superior in my book.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of epidural steroid injections in America every year. I will admit that the literature suggests that complications from these injections are "uncommon." While I have seen permanent pain relief from these injections (after several injections), the effects are usually short lived. And, repeated injections of steroids have significant long-term risks. Steroids are potent blockers of inflammation. They also reduce collagen production, leading to long term weakness of the tissue injected.

On the other hand, the ozone gas mixture has several positive actions. It normalizes the levels of inflammatory chemicals, beneficially increases key enzymes, minimizes toxic reactive free radicals and, most importantly, improves circulation. After all, ozone is oxygen - the most important nutrient for cellular and tissue repair. Where there is inflammation, there will always be a deficiency of oxygen. And oxygen is the key to actually rebuilding the tissues.

Cortisone may block pain. It may reduce inflammatory chemicals. But ozone modulates inflammation. That means it brings the process into balance. It doesn't simply suppress one necessary arm of healing (inflammation). It promotes the healthy balance of chemicals that oppose wanton inflammation. It provides oxygen the starving cells need to actually repair and rebuild tissue. Cortisone does nothing of the kind. Instead, it knocks out the ability of the cells to make collagen.

Even better: You might not need the X-ray guided needle to get terrific results. Since it's a gas, and not a liquid, it has much greater diffusion capacity. Dr. Shallenberger and I are seeing oxygen/ozone administered via standard prolotherapy techniques (needling) into more sensitive areas that rival the results of X-ray guidance. Prolozone is nothing short of miraculous.

The authors of the Italian study concluded: "Our most interesting finding was the increase in the number of patients with disc disease (disc-induced pain) who reported an improvement in symptoms. This finding supports other evidence that O2-O3 infiltration affects not only the symptoms but also the cause of pain by accelerating the natural recovery mechanism of disc herniation."

If you'd like more information on Prolozone, please read my report on it in the March 2009 issue. To find a doctor trained in Prolozone, please visit the website www.oxygenhealingtherapies.com.

Ref: American Journal of Neuroradiology, 6:996-1000, May 2005