This spring, while many of his colleagues will be practicing their golf swings, Martin Gallagher will be practicing prolotherapy in Honduras.

Dr. Gallagher, who practices in Hempfield, been selected as one of a group of physicians who will travel to Honduras in March with the Hackett Hemwall Foundation of Madison, Wis.

About 140 people will be on the team, about 90 of them physicians.

The twofold mission of the trip will be to provide treatment to people dealing with chronic pain and to train local physicians in prolotherapy and vein treatment.

Prolotherapy is short for proliferative injection therapy, and is sometimes used as an alternative to invasive arthroscopic surgery.

Natural substances, such as omega 3 fatty acids and dextrose, are injected into the place where a ligament attaches to the bone. This creates a local inflammation. The body actually lays down growth factors at the site of the injection and creates stronger tissue.

A number of Hondurans will be treated this way.

"Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere," said Dr. Gallagher, who estimates that 6,500 people will travel hours and days to get to the therapy.

"Extreme poverty and geography prevent most chronic pain sufferers from getting the treatment that will ease their suffering."

Patients will be treated at Honduran Red Cross Centers in La Ceiba, Tela and Olanchito.

The Hackett Hemwall Foundation has sent medical teams to Third World countries since 1969 and is dedicated to providing high-quality treatment to people who are otherwise unable to afford medical care.

In addition to providing medical treatments and training, the foundation ships medical supplies, computers, wheelchairs and X-ray equipment to clinics in Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines.

The foundation is directed by Jeffrey J. Patterson, an osteopathic doctor who is also a professor in the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Department of Family Medicine.

"We treat 3,000 to 4,000 patients in Honduras each year," Dr. Gallagher said.

"Prolotherapy is a very useful treatment that the foundation's physicians use to treat chronic pain. Often, it is a one-time treatment that gives patients long-term relief, so it is a very useful therapy in our Latin American medical clinics.

Advocates of prolotherapy stress that it is less invasive than surgery and less expensive. They include NFL players Mark Simoneau, of Philadelphia, and Mike Carey, of Oakland.

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop recommended the treatment to a close friend in the 1990s.

Some consider the procedure experimental. Some insurance carriers, such as Medicare, exclude coverage. The procedure, however, has become more mainstream in recent years.

Injections of irritant solutions are not new to medicine. They were performed in the late 1800s to repair hernias and in the early 1900s for jaw pain.

Dr. George Hackett developed the prolotherapy technique in the 1940s. Dr. Gustav Hemwall studied almost 10,000 prolotherapy cases between the 1950s and 1990s and found that 99 percent of the patients reported relief from chronic pain.

Dr. Gallagher is looking forward to the trip. Licensed in Pennsylvania as a family doctor and chiropractor, he is a member of Medical Wellness Associates in Jeannette, an integrative medical facility.

Patients are evaluated from a conventional medical standpoint as well as on lifestyle, diet, structural alignment of the body and ligament instability.

Treatments include traditional medicine, acupuncture, prolotherapy, oral and intravenous nutrition and change of diet. The goal in integrative medicine is to help patients get well and to decrease requirements for medication and surgery through natural and preventative methods.

"We are very comfortable in the United States," he said. "We have 30 million people without medical insurance, but in Honduras the entire country has no insurance and no access to basic medical care.

"I want to relieve the pain and suffering of people who have no other way to receive care."

While in Honduras, Dr. Gallagher will live in residents' homes and partake in their plant-based diet, which includes beans, rice, root vegetables, papaya, mango and seafood.