A powerful injury healer and pain reliever may run through our
veins, an idea that more and more medical fields are beginning to grasp
onto.
For more than a decade, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been used by
medical professionals. To create PRP, doctors take a small amount of
blood from the patient and put it on a centrifuge to concentrate it.
Then that concentrate is injected into the injured area on the patient’s
body, after appropriate local anesthetic.
Studies show that PRP therapy often works to accelerate and direct
healing, due to growth factors that the platelets secrete. Growth
factors, usually proteins or steroid hormones, act as signals to other
cells, to stimulate growth. They come in many varieties, such as for
connective tissue, epidermal, insulin and vascular endothelial growth.
PRP therapy is often used for athletes. More than 86,000 athletes
receive the therapy each year according to researchers at Stanford.
Included on the list of athletes who’ve received it: Kobe Bryant,
Derrick Rose and Tiger Woods.
But the therapy is used for a wide variety of problems. For example, a
recent study from the Rothman Institute of the Thomas Jefferson
University Hospital looked at how PRP therapy was effective at treating
people with tennis elbow. They gathered 230 patients who had been
suffering from tennis elbow for at least three months. Half of the
participants received PRP therapy. At 24 weeks, the PRP group reported
71 percent improvement, while the control group reported 56 percent
improvement. The PRP group also reported less tenderness of the elbow
during the months following their treatment.
PRP therapy can also be effective for back injury, as damage to the
many different tissues of the back can be the source of pain. Platelets
can reduce pain, strengthen joints and repair ligaments and tendons in
the back. This may be a way for people to avoid more serious treatment,
such as surgery.
The treatment for back and sports injuries is simple, due in part to
the fact that the patient himself carries the substance needed for the
therapy to work. It is usually performed on an out-patient basis, and is
completed in about an hour. The doctor may have patient take precaution
in protecting the site of the injection, after the injections are
given. Usually 3-5 injections are given, spread out over the course of
treatment. Some pain may be experienced for a week or two after
treatment, in the location where the platelets were received.
According to research from Shantou University Medical College, PRP
therapy has shown promise for nerve regeneration, which involves
regrowth of injured axons, the restoration of synaptic connections and
the recovery of some physiological functions. Researchers from Hiroshima
University in Japan have found similar results, showing that PRP may be
effective for spinal cord injuries.
Dentists also have been known to use platelets.
This therapy shows promise for many different areas of medicine, and may be the future of pain relief and injury recovery.
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