Photo Credit: Dr. David Woznica
In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in the realm of sports medicine towards embracing complementary and alternative therapies alongside conventional treatments. Athletes, coaches, and medical professionals alike are increasingly turning to these non-traditional approaches to enhance performance, expedite recovery, and address chronic injuries.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) encompasses a diverse range of therapies and practices that fall outside the scope of conventional medicine. Views around medicine differ greatly around the world, but in the United States, 21 percent of respondents said they preferred alternative over conventional medicine. These may include acupuncture, herbal medicine, chiropractic care, and mind-body interventions such as yoga and meditation, among others. While once regarded with skepticism, these modalities have gained widespread acceptance due to growing empirical evidence supporting their efficacy and the desire for more holistic approaches to healthcare.
One technique that is gaining traction in sports medicine is prolotherapy or proliferation therapy. This is a minimally invasive, injection-based treatment that is used to treat joint and ligament pain. Dr. David Woznica of the renowned clinic Woz Wellness is a major proponent of the use of prolotherapy in sports medicine, and his clinic uses the treatment for many common musculoskeletal issues of the muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, cartilage, and spinal joints.
“It wasn’t until my eighth year of medical training before I heard of prolotherapy. An associate professor at Columbia University agreed to try prolotherapy when a patient asked to receive it for their rib pain,” said Dr. Woznica. “I did not hear of it again during my residency or fellowship training. Treatments such as PRP (platelet-rich plasma) or bone marrow concentrate (BMAC) were just starting to be studied and used at that time, and even those were used sparingly at top medical institutions. Prolotherapy was not top-of-mind.”
Dr. Woznica began to see more of the treatment when relocating to Chicago, where he started working with Dr. Ross Hauser, who was trained under one of the founders of prolotherapy. There are three primary types of prolotherapy injections: hyper-osmolar dextrose, platelet-rich plasma (PRP), and bone marrow or fat stem cell concentrates. The first two are the most common, and many people opt for PRP because it uses healing cells from one’s own blood. There may be pressure or discomfort in the injection site, typically for two to seven days, and most body areas require three to five treatments to be fully healed.
While prolotherapy and other regenerative medicine treatments are not very common in traditional medical practices, Dr. Woznica performs thousands of prolotherapy treatments each year. “When people ask what prolotherapy and regenerative treatments such as PRP or BMAC do, the simple answer is that they start a healing cascade within the tissue,” explained Dr. Woznica.
The application of prolotherapy in sports medicine has garnered considerable attention for its potential to accelerate recovery from musculoskeletal injuries and chronic pain conditions. Athletes, in particular, are drawn to its non-surgical nature, minimal downtime, and ability to target the root cause of their injuries rather than merely masking symptoms. Prolotherapy is commonly used to treat conditions such as tendonitis, ligament sprains, osteoarthritis, and pain coming from the neck and lower back.
Complementary and alternative medicine in sports medicine is gaining traction, which signifies a profound evolution in how injury management and performance enhancement are approached. Dr. Woznica and the team at Woz Wellness are at the forefront of this movement and will continue providing innovative and personalized solutions for each patient.
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