The human body is held together by a network of connective tissues that are highly vulnerable to injury — through exercise, accidents and even the normal lifting, pulling and pushing of daily life.

Few of us, for example, get through life without spraining an ankle. And as many sadly know, once an ankle is badly sprained, it may be sprained again and again. That often happens as well with other body parts: shoulders, wrists, neck, back, jaw, feet, even fingers and toes, all of which are subject to arthritic changes after an injury.

The risk of reinjury rises when the ligaments that hold bone to bone, or the tendons that connect bone to muscle, fail to heal completely. And such failure is apparently very common. Over time, and with multiple injuries, this incomplete healing can result in lax connective tissues that cannot fully support a joint.

Dr. K. Dean Reeves, clinical associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of Kansas Medical Center, likens the damage to a partly shredded rope that lacks the strength of an intact one, and to stretched putty that will not return to its former length. Dr. Reeves is one of several hundred physicians and osteopaths who specialize in a therapeutic technique called prolotherapy, an alternative medicine method to promote connective tissue repair even years after the damage occurred.