Rooster injections: Are they something to crow about?

ST. PETERSBURG, FL (Ivanhoe Newswire/WTVM) - Knee and joint pain affects 100 million Americans.

Now patients can choose from many different treatment options. Here are details on how fluid from a rooster can get the joints moving again. A few months ago, Bob Justiana could barely walk.

"I would hear bone to bone contact, clicks in my knees and tremendous strain," he says.

So he tried ultrasound-guided injections of hyaluronic acid, a substance that comes from an unlikely source, a rooster.

"I took the chance and went for it," Justiana says.

Nurse practitioner Evelyn Kikta from the Tarpon Spine and Medical Center says humans also make the hyaluronic acid.

"By putting this hyaluronic acid from the comb of the chicken, of the rooster, it stimulates the production of your own," says Kikta.

The FDA-approved knee injections are given once a week for five weeks. Most patients gradually feel a difference, although some have immediate pain relief.

"I have patients right now who are almost in their third year without having it again," Kikta says.

Mike Marcell specializes in chiropractic care. He's glad that patients have additional options.

"There's a nice intermediary form of care that's evolved in many areas with joint pain," says Marcell.

And for Bob, "At my age, for the years I have left. I want to be comfortable." After a few shots in the knee, he's back in the swing of things.

Most insurance companies typically pay for this procedure after patients have exhausted other efforts like massage, anti-inflammatory drugs and physical therapy.

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