Thanks to Dr. Earl Gedney, an osteopathic physician and surgeon, prolotherapy was discovered. In the early 1930s, Dr. Gedney caught his thumb in closing surgical suite doors thereby stretching the joint and causing severe pain and instability. His colleagues insisted that nothing could be done for his condition and that his surgical career was over, Gedney did his own research and decided to “be his own doctor.” He knew of a group of doctors called “herniologists” that used irritating solutions to stimulate the repair of the distended connective tissue ring in hernias. He extrapolated this knowledge to inject his injured thumb and was able to fully rehabilitate it.

The first publishing of Prolotherapy (called “Sclerotherapy for the article) in medical literature was published in 1937, by Gedney called “The Hypermobile Joint,”. The article gave a preliminary protocol and two case reports – one of a patient with knee pain and another with low back pain – with both successfully treated with this method. In February 1938, Gedney followed up this paper with a presentation at the meeting of the Osteopathic Clinical Society of Philadelphia which outlined the technique. The solutions used then (and now) are primarily dextrose-based, although other formulas are used and can be effective. The former US Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop endorsed this therapy as it helped him and he uses it at his practice. Practiced by physicians in the U.S. and worldwide, Prolotherapy has been shown effective in treating many musculoskeletal conditions – such as back and neck pain, ligament sprains, tendinopathies, tennis/golfers elbow, ankle pain, joint laxity and instability, plantar fasciitis, shoulder, knee pain and other joint pain.