So while PRP seemed to have temporary relief (it felt so good and so optimistic!), the results didn’t last and less than 2 weeks later, I felt the pain slowly return in my elbow. A complete sinking feeling after getting my hopes up, but I wasn’t done trying. And neither was my doctor. Hearing that PRP didn’t solve the elbow pain, he said we could try another injection (did you read my description of the PRP procedure – no way!) or Kaatsu. Kaatsu? If I haven’t convinced you yet that I’ve tried everything for elbow pain, I hope you’re coming around now.
After my first Kaatsu session (other than the session itself), I felt great – no elbow pain! Until a few hours later… But doc had told me I needed to keep the Kaatsu up several times a week for a few weeks. Not super practical for me since he was about an hour and a half away. So after a few sessions, I took matters into my own hands. I devised my own Kaatsu system (with my doctor’s blessing) to treat myself at home.
This probably was the most hopeful I had been in many months as the pain melted away by the end of each session and stayed away for a couple of hours. Just a couple of hours of relief was worth it and gave me optimism that the next treatment would be the treatment to eliminate the elbow pain permanently.
So what is Kaatsu and how could these many possible treatments exist for pain – specifically golfer’s elbow and tennis elbow pain in my case? I couldn’t believe it – when one door closed, another one opened. But I knew this couldn’t go on forever so I was feeling more and more desperate to find a solution for the elbow pain.
Kaatsu it turns out was developed by a fitness fanatic in Japan who first used blood constriction for therapy and post surgery and other ailment treatment. He took it further after discovering the magical powers of blood constriction to bodybuilding and replicating the effects of weight lifting.
Effectively, Kaatsu is a tourniquet. What look like blood pressure cuffs are placed around your arms near the shoulders. The tubes connected to the cuffs pump air from a machine that squeezes the cuffs to certain, very uncomfortable levels. For Kaatsu benefits to take effect, the constriction must be very aggressive, to the point of sweats and lightheadedness in my case.
While the cuffs were on my arms (10 minutes at a time that felt like an eternity) and also on my legs, I was taken through various exercises that used the weight of my own limbs. The principle behind Kaatsu is tricking the brain with restricted blood flow.
But with each lightheadedness spell and dizziness, something didn’t feel right. So I went back to – you guessed it, Google. What I learned about Kaatsu (and the guy who developed the system) was too scary to continue but I made a very interesting side discovery on the way, which is up next. Don't attempt Kaatsu without consulting your physician and never on your own - there is risk of heart failure and complications.
Your perseverance to read this far is noble, but if you'd rather jump the line, click here to jump to the all-natural, 11 minutes a day method that allowed me to go from chronic pain to pain-free in less than 2 weeks.
As you know by now, every rabbit hole reveals another route and the next one up is Vasper Systems - blood constriction and circulation with a twist!