MD Podiatrist Discusses Prolotherapy and Regenerative Medicine According to Dan Michaels, DPM, “Regenerative medicine refers to the goal of regenerating healthy, new tissue. These techniques, of which there are a growing number, harness the power of stem cells. These are a unique cell that can form any new cell type, be it skin, muscle, bone, nerve. These therapies have the potential to revolutionize medicine.

Surprisingly, one technique has been practiced well before we developed the concept of regenerative medicine. Prolotherapy (shortened from the word “proliferation”) has been in use for musculoskeletal medicine for three-quarters of a century. Its success revolves around the concept that acute inflammation is part of healing, an idea only recently accepted into general practice.
“Prolotherapy is a non-surgical technique, in which a substance is injected into the injured area, and it acts to stimulate acute inflammation, in effect, jump-starting the process of healing. The benefits of prolotherapy are many, not least of which is the lack of side-effects and complications. Because the liquid injected is not a drug but a naturally-occurring material, there can be no drug-to-drug interactions,” says Dr. Michaels.