Overview
Platelet rich plasma and stem cell therapy can help with injured joints, tendons, ligaments and can be used in multiple other applications. It uses parts of your own blood and/or growth factors to reduce pain, speed up healing and improve overall function.
Is PRP or Stem Cell therapy right for me?
If you have a tendon or ligament injury and traditional methods have not provided relief, then PRP and/or Stem Cell therapy may be the solution. The procedure is less aggressive and less expensive than surgery. It will heal tissue with minimal or no scarring and alleviates further degeneration of the tissues. There will be an initial evaluation with the doctor to see if PRP and/or Stem Cell therapy is right for you. PRP and Stem Cell injections can be helpful for treatment of:
- Spine
- Sacroiliac joint
- Iliolumbar ligaments
- Facet joints
- Interspinous ligaments
- Shoulders
- Rotator cuff–partial tears
- Biceps tendinosis
- Chronic glenohumeral ligament sprains
- Acromio-clavicular joint dysfunction and pain
- Levator scapulae tendinosis
- Elbows
- Epicondylitis–medical and lateral–tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow
- Ulnar collateral ligament injury
- Distal biceps tendon partial tear
- Wrist & Hand
- Chronic Thumb Sprain
- Joint arthritis
- Hip/Pelvis/SI Joints
- Piriformis syndrome
- Greater trochanteric bursitis
- Sacroiliac joint dysfunction
- Hamstring strain
- Ischial tuberosity bursitis
- Hip joint arthritis
- Osteonecrosis of the femoral head
- Symphysis pubis pain
- Knee
- Patellar tendinitis/tendinosis
- Osgood-Schlatter’s Disease
- Quadraceps strain or partial tear
- Degenerative arthritis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Chondromalacia patella
- Enthesopathy
- Lower Leg
- Calf pain
- Ankle & Foot
- Chronic Ligament Strains
- Chronic Achilles tendinosis
- Chronic partial tendon tear
- Plantar fascitis
- Arthritic joints
- Osgood-Schlatter’s disease
Benefits of PRP
Parts of your body have a hard time healing. For example, ligaments and tendons (they connect bones and muscles) don’t get much blood from the body. Sprains and strains of these tissues heal slowly. PRP and Stem Cells uses growth factors found in your blood to speed up the healing in these areas.
Creating the Mix
For PRP, the process begins with a sample of your blood. It is spun around in a centrifuge. This separates it into platelets, plasma, and red and white blood cells. The platelets are then concentrated and mixed with some of the plasma. This mixture is called “platelet rich plasma.” The doctor injects this into the site of your injury. For Stem Cell therapy, the process is similar but will require bone marrow aspiration as well.
Injection
The area is prepped and sterilized. A small amount of numbing medication if placed into the outlayer of your skin to make the injection comfortable. Using either fluoroscopic guidance or ultrasound guidance (imaging devices to help see exactly where the needle is going), the needle is advanced until it reaches the area that is causing your pain. Next, the PRP and/or Stem Cells are injected with direct visualization to ensure it goes to the areas that need it. After the injection, your immune system (the system that keeps your body healthy) reacts quickly. Special white blood cells called “macrophages” rush in. They take away damaged cells. They help prep the site for healing. The concentrated mix contains huge reservoirs of bioactive proteins, including growth factors that are vital to initiate and accelerate tissue repair and regeneration. These bioactive proteins initiate connective tissue healing, bone regeneration, and repair, promote development of new blood vessels, and stimulate the wound healing process. Over time, they repair and rebuild the injured tissues.
Not All PRP Kits Are The Same.
We use the EMCYTE PRP system which has shown to have high concentrations of platelets. Our kits create concentrated PRP with very low red blood cells, neutrophils and granulocytes. The end results are platelet concentrations exceeding 7-9X baseline. Although the cost of these kits are higher than others, we only use the best so that our patients have the best chance of success.
Overall
The PRP and Stem Cell therapy process is relatively quick and low risk procedure. These kinds of regenerative medicine treatments may help treat and reduce your pain without harmful side effects as seen with the use of certain pharmaceutical medications. Treatment outcomes vary from patient to patient and some patients may need more than one treatment before they get the relief they are looking for.
