Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy

There’s a new breakthrough in sports medicine that has surgeons running scared, but patients jumping for joy. It is the ability to use a natural injection to heal rotator cuff tears, knee inquires, ankle problems, tennis elbow, and many other typical sports/exercise problems, without riskier surgery or steroid injections.

Recently researchers made a breakthrough in what is known as “platelet rich plasma injections“, also known as “PRP”. Through a simple injection of a substance which is found naturally in our own bodies doctors have made a real advancement in the field of Regenerative Medicine.

Regenerative Medicine is the area of sports medicine focused on regeneration of injured tissue rather than surgical “repair” (which usually means just “cut out”).

Here doctors have been working for years looking for something they could easily inject into a ligament, tendon or muscle injury to really “fix the problem” rather just surgically removing it or just masking the pain with pain killers. PRP just might be that “Holly Grail”.

Researchers have found that there is a substance in our own blood designed to stimulate the repair of injuries when we get them. The problem is that some times an injury doesn’t get enough of these tissue “growth factors” to properly heal…which may be one of the real reasons why some people end up with chronic injuries and pain that just won’t go away.

By obtaining a small sample of a patient’s own blood and then filtering out only that part that promotes healing and the repair of injured tissue, these “growth factors” can be isolated and and concentrating to as much as five times their normal levels. This supercharged concentrate is then simply injected back into injured area (usually under ultrasound image guidance) finally stimulating the body’s own response to heal.

The idea to merge cutting edge technology with the body’s natural ability to heal itself.  Our blood is made of RBC (Red Blood Cells), WBC (White Blood Cells), Plasma, and Platelets. Platelets were initially known to be responsible for blood clotting. In the last 20 years we have learned that when activated in the body, platelets release all important healing proteins called growth factors. There are many growth factors with varying responsibilities, however cumulatively they accelerate tissue and wound healing. Therefore after increasing the concentration of these platelets, we are able to deliver a powerful cocktail of growth factors that can dramatically enhance tissue repair.

PRP is virtually a cocktail of many proteins that collectively stimulate repair and regeneration. PRP was initially used over 20 years ago in the Dental community to promote wound healing in cancer patients with jaw reconstruction. Soon afterwards its applications extended across many fields of medicine from cardiovascular surgery to orthopaedics.

Our results with Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy (PRP) have been nothing short of extraordinary. We can now offer this simple, natural, and safe approach to patients with a multitude of problems such as rotator cuff tears, knee pain, and a host of other injuries…many of which were treated by surgery in the past. Best of all the procedure can be done in our office in less than one hour and without the risks of surgery! Gone are the days of prolonged physical therapy and time away from work for a riskier operation and hospital stay.

So next time you’re told by somebody that you need surgery, there may just be a much simpler safer alternative for you called PRP.

Source:

• http://manhattanspine.com/our-services/platelet-rich-plasma-therapy