Perineural Injection Therapy
What is Perineural Injection Therapy?
Perineural Injection Therapy (PIT) treats inflamed and injured nerves that cause chronic pain. The nerve pain can be due to trauma, arthritis, sports injuries, overuse, occupational, or surgical injuries.
PIT is a proven safe, effective treatment for patients who are experiencing joint pain and are considering options outside of surgery and orthobiologics treatment.
Who can benefit from PIT?
- Individuals experiencing joint pain who are not candidates for surgery or want to avoid it
- Individuals who are not candidates for biologic treatments such as Non-Surgical and Stem Cell Therapy
- Individuals who are still experiencing joint pain following surgery or biologic treatment
What Causes Nerve Pain?
The simple answer for this is nerve inflammation. So then what causes nerve inflammation?
Nerves can become inflamed for a number of reasons such as an overuse injury, sports injury, or trauma. It’s important to note that regardless of the mechanism, there are a few “weak points” where the nerve has a greater chance of experiencing these problems.
These weak points consist of the following:
- When a nerve courses through a tunnel
- At sites where the nerve branches
- When it rubs against a surface
- When it gets entangled in scar tissue
- Where nerve endings terminate in the skin
- When it passes through fascial tissue
- Following surgery
Our nerves are made up of individual nerve cells that pass signals to and from each other. When nerves get injured, it’s ability to pass these signals from cell to cell become disrupted. This injury also forces the nearby cells to release chemicals that signal the brain of the disruption by causing pain.
The chemicals that cause pain also prevent the surrounding tissues such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments from healing. This type of pain is known as neurogenic pain.
How Does PIT Work?
Dr. John Lyftogt discovered that these injured nerves can be treated with dextrose, which is a naturally occurring sugar in our body.
When dextrose is concentrated to 5%, given a pH similar to the body at 7.4, and injected next to an injured nerve, it has the ability to restore the injured nerve cells’ signaling and function. This, in turn, decreases nerve pain and eventually eliminates it all together while promoting the nerve and surrounding tissues to heal.
What Does PIT Accomplish?
- Reduction and elimination of pain using Dextrose
- Restores Brain Nerve Barrier
- Corrects tight junction dysfunction in nerves
- Corrects miniature compartment syndrome
- Stimulates nerve repair
What Does the Procedure Entail?
The performing physician needs to have knowledge and understanding of where the sensory nerves run throughout the body and where their weak points occur.
Once the inflamed nerve and weak points have been identified, the physician uses a small needle to make small injections under the skin along the path of the nerve. This allows the dextrose solution to be placed next to the nerve and should result in pain relief within a few minutes.
The average number of treatments needed for this therapy to produce long-term results is 6 sessions spaced 1 week apart. At the end of each session, the patient should feel immediate relief with pain improving by 15-20% once the dextrose “wears off.”
Overall, about 85% of patient’s respond positively to this treatment, which also contains no negative side effects.
