What Conditions Can Benefit from PRP Injections?
Chronic pain can swiftly degrade your quality of life. While many sports injuries heal on their own or can be remedied with surgical attention, some soft tissue and tendon injuries may be difficult to treat, and pain can easily become chronic. Chronic tendonitis, as an example, can be caused by injuries that are difficult to heal due to low blood supply to the area. Here is some information on how your San Francisco orthopedic doctor can help you with PRP treatments.
At The Institute for Arthroscopy & Sports Medicine in San Francisco, California, Dr. Jeffrey Halbrecht and his experienced team provide the boost your body needs to start healing with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. These are particularly efficient at treating soft tissue injuries and tendonitis, both of which require long healing times.
Platelet-rich plasma
Your blood contains three main components, all suspended in a thin, serum-like plasma. The three components are your red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Platelets are responsible for helping the blood clotting process, and enabling faster wound healing. They’re not only your body’s natural healers, but they also call in help in the form of growth factors to the site of an injury, and nudge the healing process into action.
PRP is used heavily in sports medicine, as a post-surgical treatment that can speed healing, and as a way for your body to jumpstart the healing process. It can also be injected as needed into a joint, into soft tissue, or at the site of a tendon injury.
Creating PRP
Dr. Halbrecht draws a blood sample from your arm, then isolates the platelets by putting the drawn blood through a centrifuge, which concentrates them in the plasma and allows the red and white blood cells to be removed. Nothing is added — PRP therapy uses nothing but your own body's biological matter, so the treatment won’t cause any adverse reactions, and the platelets can instantly go to work to draw growth factors to the site of the injury.
In most cases, you’ll only have to wait up to 30 minutes for the PRP preparation step to be completed. Once the PRP is prepared, we inject the solution into the site of your chronic pain. The injection itself takes only seconds, then you can be on your way. PRP has a high success rate, and injections can be repeated, as needed, for pain relief.
Have you recently suffered a tendon or soft tissue injury? Don’t hold off getting help from a skilled sports medicine doctor in San Franciso. To get in touch with the team at IASM, call 415-233-7996, or book a visit online.