Surgery repairs injuries and medications kill bacteria, replace hormones, and affect cellular activity. But nothing in the medical world can beat your body’s natural healing ability, a job it accomplishes with highly specialized cells like the platelets in platelet-rich plasma (PRP).
Andrew B. Richardson, MD, has extensive experience using PRP to alleviate pain the most effective way possible, by boosting healing in the damaged tissues. PRP therapy helps get you back to your daily activities as quickly as possible. Here’s a rundown of how PRP works and the remarkable healing benefits you can gain from PRP.
All healing in your body begins with platelets. Every time you sustain an injury, platelets immediately travel through your bloodstream to the damaged tissues and activate healing by releasing proteins called growth factors.
When you get PRP therapy, we simply harvest your body’s own platelets, concentrate them together, and use them as a safe, natural treatment. We begin by taking a sample of your blood and spinning it in a centrifuge.
The spinning separates the platelets (cells in your blood) and plasma (the liquid part of your blood). Then we mix a high number of platelets with enough plasma to make an injectable solution.
As PRP reaches inflamed and damaged tissues, the platelets release their growth factors. The growth factors then boost healing by:
Though all the activities in this list are essential for healing, PRP’s ability to regulate inflammation is especially important. Inflammation has a vital function in the early stages of healing. It helps your body fight infection and speeds up the healing process.
However, after healing reaches a more advanced stage, inflammation should go away. If it remains too long, inflammation has the opposite impact and begins to damage tissues. The growth factors that regulate inflammation make sure it goes down at the right stage of healing.
PRP is seldom the first treatment you receive. In most cases, treatment begins with conventional medical care, and then we consider PRP when your pain, loss of mobility, and other symptoms persist despite traditional treatments.
We may recommend PRP if you have a severe or slow-healing wound. Some tissues, such as the cartilage in your knee heal very slowly because they have a limited blood supply. Without good circulation, your body’s natural platelets can’t reach the injury. A PRP injection often solves that problem.
PRP also stimulates healing in a wide range of musculoskeletal conditions. A few examples include:
We may also apply PRP during orthopedic surgery to improve your postoperative healing process.
If you have questions about PRP or want to learn if it can help your condition, call Andrew B. Richardson, MD, at the office location convenient to you or book an appointment online today.
