PRP – Platelet Rich Plasma therapy
We get many patients in the office that are curious about PRP therapy, or Platelet Rich Plasma therapy. Recent praise of this treatment plan has come from professional athletes like Tiger Woods, who went through PRP therapy injections to help him recover from an injured knee. This treatment involves collecting blood from the patient, and then inserting the patient’s own platelets into the injured area to stimulate healing and regeneration. This article will help you gain a better understanding of PRP therapy and what it could do for you.
In order to fully understand how this process works, it’s necessary to first understand a little more about blood. Blood is made up of four different components; plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Each part plays a role in keeping your body functioning properly. For example, as many of us learned in high school, white blood cells help the body fight infection and disease. Platelets, on the other hand, act as the body’s emergency medics. They are first on the scene at an injury, clotting to stop any bleeding and immediately helping to regenerate new tissue in the wounded area.
It’s these platelets that are the center of PRP therapy. After consulting your prolotherapist and deciding that PRP treatment is appropriate for your condition, you will then be asked to give blood. Your own blood will be put in a centrifuge, which is a device that allows the blood to separate the platelet components from the others. This separated blood is what we call the platelet rich plasma. Once separated, it is injected into the injured area.
PRP treatments have been proven to have very beneficial results. By reintroducing the body to a high concentration of its own platelet rich plasma, we are increasing the amount of soft tissue generation, including the tendons, ligaments, as well as collagen. PRP also works to strengthen the bones by increasing bone density, and it decreases pain and inflammation. Another benefit of PRP therapy is that it is completely safe because nothing foreign is being injected into the body, only the body’s own healing materials.
A study done in 2006 by the American Journal of Sports Medicine reported that out of 15 patients treated with PRP therapy, there was a 93 percent improvement by the time of the final follow-up appointment. PRP treatments have been proven successful, and they are an all-natural way to treat chronic pain.
Not every patient is treated with PRP.
We do not treat every patient with PRP, most often, Dextrose Prolotherapy is used instead of PRP, because of the extra step in drawing your blood, the extra expense in purchasing the PRP kit, and extra time it takes to prepare the platelets. The injections are exactly the same way, but the proliferant, or solution injected is different. For many years we have had great success in healing 1000’s of patients’ and having them avoid surgery with dextrose Prolotherapy.
Your decision to have PRP should be discussed with us to determine which type of Prolotherapy, (Dextrose, platelets, or another proliferant) is best for you.
Not every doctor is proficient in PRP Therapy
Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy has become very popular. Physicians who do not do traditional Prolotherapy are now offering PRP. Unfortunately, these untrained doctors are injecting the platelets in a way that is often painful, debilitating for weeks, and can leave hematomas (collections of clotted blood) in the area injected. We believe that PRP is best delivered by a physician already experienced and well versed in Prolotherapy.
