Category Archives: treatment

Am I wrong? I survey some recent patellofemoral pain science in search of embarrassment

By Paul Ingraham | Published: July 6, 2010
Recently a reader wrote to me to point out that, in his opinion, recent scientific evidence has begun to support the “conventional wisdom” about chronic anterior knee pain (a.k.a. patellofemoral pain syndrome, or PFPS). That would make my e-book on the topic look bad. I pretty much roll my eyes at the conventional wisdom from [...]
Also posted in debunkery, exercise, gait retraining, hip weakness, patellar alignment and tracking, patellofemoral pain, structuralism | Leave a comment

More evidence that iliotibial band syndrome is not a tendinitis

By Paul Ingraham | Published: March 22, 2010
In 2009, Belgian surgeons got great results with 35 cases of iliotibial band syndrome not by “loosening” the IT band with the conventional surgical approach, but by removing irritated tissue from under the IT band (see Michels). Their research was a milestone in the science of runner’s knee pain. My iliotibial band syndrome tutorial now [...]
Also posted in it band, research, science, surgery | Leave a comment

Platelet-rich plasma injection “no more effective than saltwater”

By Paul Ingraham | Published: January 14, 2010
Well, this was probably inevitable. Last summer a reader asked me what I think of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections — the injection of a concentrated preparation of your own blood into irritated tissue, usually a tendinitis or similar condition like iliotibial band syndrome or plantar fasciitis — to stimulate healing. I replied quite optimistically at the [...]
Also posted in debunkery, it band, osteoarthritis, pain, patellofemoral pain, plantar fasciitis, research | Leave a comment

The Graston Technique®: Magic steel massage tools that supposedly scrape the pain away, and “resonate” in the therapist’s hands

By Paul Ingraham | Published: January 13, 2010
Dr. Harriet Hall, the SkepDoc, recently criticized The Graston Technique® in some detail. At the same time, I was responding to a reader request for more information about Graston for plantar fasciitis (“tendinitis” of the arch of the foot), a common treatment offering for that condition. It’s also commonly prescribed for iliotibial band syndrome (runner’s [...]
Also posted in debunkery, it band, massage therapy, plantar fasciitis | Leave a comment

Steroid injections for plantar fasciitis are a complex mix of good and bad news

By Paul Ingraham | Published: January 7, 2010
Steroid (cortisone) injections and iontophoresis (injection without a needle, using a small electric charge to drive a drug through the skin) are routinely prescribed by physicians for plantar fasciitis, and many other inflammatory conditions. They are often regarded as something of a magic bullet for inflammation, and not without good reason: cortisone has powerful anti-inflammatory [...]
Also posted in plantar fasciitis, steroid injection | Leave a comment

Ultrasound probably does not help most knee pain and arthritis

By Paul Ingraham | Published: December 4, 2009
As promised in the last post, only an hour ago, here’s some more ultrasound information. This time I’m zooming in on one of SaveYourself.ca’s most important topics: knee pain, especially patellofemoral (kneecap) pain. Does ultrasound help knee pain? No, it probably does not. As described in detail in my last post, ultrasound is generally understudied, for [...]
Also posted in debunkery, osteoarthritis, patellofemoral pain, ultrasound | Leave a comment

Ultrasound again, but this time with the smoking gun showing the poor state of the evidence

By Paul Ingraham | Published: December 4, 2009
A few days ago I reported that I was pretty disappointed to find so little ultrasound research for me to study. A few days later, I presented you with the smoking gun: the evidence about the state of the evidence. I’ve summarized it all here, with some repetition of the previous post, but much more, [...]
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Therapeutic ultrasound ignored by science but sold to millions of patients

By Paul Ingraham | Published: November 28, 2009
Today I’m studying ultrasound therapy for musculoskeletal pain problems. Unfortunately, there’s not a great deal to study! There’s hardly any research on this topic at all. I didn’t think it would be like this. For years now, I’ve been meaning to get around to delving deeper into the topic, assuming that there had to be a [...]
Also posted in myths, science, ultrasound | Leave a comment