Osteitis Pubis & Prolotherapy

[Dale]

I've been diagnosed (via MRI & Xray) with Osteitis Pubis, something that usually happens to pregnant women and rugby players more so than runners (who knew?).  In any event, my relatively grim diagnosis is 6-9 months before I'm back 100% running again after heavy doses of rest and Physical Therapy, if that even works.  Over 1 month into the rest/PT regime and I'm back where I began.
 
Before the pity party starts for me, I really have a purpose for posting.....two treatment options are available should the more complete rest I'm on now (no cross-training on the stationary bike allowed, minimal walking around, try not to stand up a lot, etc).  I'm trying to weigh the options and wondered if anyone had experience with one of them:  Prolotherapy. 

I'd love to hear from anyone who's had Osteitis Pubis, especially if they managed to recover, as well as anyone who used Prolotherapy.

[Dallen]

I'm not nearly an expert at this, and I will admit I din't even know what prolotherapy was until I looked it up, but no one else has responded so I shall at least share my limited input. First, Osteitis pubis is a nasty injury to have. It's tough to fix. I would take things as easy as possible, especially with the lack of improvement after a month of trying. A little cross-training is not worth months away from runing.

As for prolotherapy, it sounds like a great idea, but I'm not seeing any proof that it actually works. I would be cautious about trying it, especially if you are paying for it. There are other treatments in medicine where an irritant causes a healing reaction, but there are a lot more problems that have an irritant as their root cause, particularly joint diseases.

Keep trying to get some first hand advice. I would want to hear several unbiased success stories before I tried it. I hate to suggest it, but I'm sure that you could find some guinea pigs on the letsrun message board.

[Dale]

Thanks Dallen.  Yup, I can vouch for the nastiness.  It was actually getting worse on complete rest until I decided to go see my chiro yesterday to discuss pelvic alignment test he could do, since it seems the best treatment is in Australia at the hands of PT that practice manipulation (the kind that leaves brusing from what I understand).  Anyway, he did managed an adjustment that made the pain completely disappear, only to return today, but that gives me hope that some additional adjustments mixed with rest and core strengthening later will help me get thru this (without springing for unproven treatments).  The only reason I considered prolotherapy was that I'd heard an elite tried it for the same reason and had success.  Anyway, here's hoping I can work thru without the need for big needles!