PRP Therapy Helps the Body Heal Itself

By Virgil Balint, MD

Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy offers a new way to help the body heal from musculoskeletal injuries. Unlike cortisone and hyaluronic acid injections, which provide temporary pain relief, PRP addresses the underlying problem; the actual damage done to injured tissues. PRP makes use of a patient's own blood platelets to provide relief as well as healing for patients suffering from a variety of problems, ushering in a brand new age in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain and injury.

PRPs Many Uses

The benefits include reducing pain and stimulating repairs for a variety of injuries including those to the knee, hip, shoulder, arm, back, lower leg and foot.

It is an effective treatment for a long list of problems including sprains and tears of ligaments, muscle pain or injury, sacroiliac joint pain, bursitis in the knee and/or hip and golfer's and tennis elbow. It is also very effective in treating rotator cuff pain resulting from partial tears, tendonitis, or tendonopathy, arthritis in the facet joints, plantar fasciitis, shin splints, sprained ankles, Achilles tendonitis, and more.

Also, it has been very effective for athletes who have suffered sprains and strains. Athletes have been able to return to the playing field with completely restored strength and function.

PRP can also be used to treat mild arthritis of the knee. While it doesn't reverse the arthritic process, it does slow it down substantially, extending the usefulness of the knee joint and helps to delay the need for knee replacement surgery.

The Power of Platelets

These remarkable results are made possible because researchers have found a way to concentrate platelets, one of the components of whole blood, and harness their powerful properties.

Platelets are most commonly known for their clotting function, but they also store several different types of growth factors that form the basis of the healing process. PRP contains a concentration of these growth factors, and this concentration increases their efficiency in attracting stem cells and activating them to repair damaged tissues.

What to Expect

The therapy is performed in the comfort of your pain specialist's office, and takes a couple of hours to collect the blood, render the platelet rich plasma by spinning the blood in a centrifuge, and re-injecting the it into the injured tissue. Because the patient's own blood supply is used, there is no risk of the possibility of rejection or disease transmission.

A small amount of anesthetic is combined with the PRP to minimize any discomfort from the injection, and there may be some soreness around the injection site for a few days. Even so, this discomfort should not limit normal activities.

Patients should remember that this is not a “quick fix,” like a cortisone shot for pain relief, but a real repair that takes time to develop. Many patients won't notice a marked improvement for two to four weeks after an initial PRP injection, but healing will continue and be noticeable beyond that point.

Patients who experience musculoskeletal pain that fails to respond to other treatments now have a safe, effective, natural option for achieving pain relief as well as real healing of their injuries.