Is PRP Right for Me?

When you sustain a small cut, your skin heals quickly, closing itself off to potential invaders like bacteria. How? Microscopic cell fragments in your blood called platelets flood the injury site and form a wound-sealing clot that simultaneously stops the bleeding and initiates the skin healing process. 

The healing power of platelets is precisely what makes platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy such a potent treatment approach for a wide variety of common orthopedic conditions and injuries, ranging from arthritis-related joint pain to inflammatory repetitive use damage, and everything in between. 

As board-certified orthopedists who specialize in PRP therapy at Orthopedic Center of Palm Beach County, our skilled team offers this holistic, minimally invasive treatment to patients looking to ease chronic joint pain, accelerate sports injury healing, or support optimal recovery following a joint replacement.  

Learn how PRP therapy works — and find out what it might be able to do for you. 

The healing power of blood platelets

To understand how PRP therapy works, it’s helpful to know a few basic facts about your blood platelets, commonly referred to as “liquid gold” among regenerative medicine specialists. 

The smallest blood cells 

By volume, your blood is mostly a clear fluid called plasma. It gets its color and vital, bioactive properties from the various solid components suspended within it, including red cells, white cells, and platelets.

Roughly half the size of a red blood cell, platelets are the smallest solid cells in your blood. They get their name from the disc-like shape they take when they’re dormant (inactive) and just floating around. 

A shapeshifting healer

When you sustain an injury, platelets transform from their smooth saucer shape into their active form, sprouting long “arms” that make them look like an octopus or spider. This tentacle-like feature enables the microscopic blood cells to attach themselves to a damaged area and start making repairs. 

Growth factor potential

A platelet’s regenerative power is all about its intrinsic growth factors: Blood platelets contain hundreds of beneficial growth factors that actively facilitate bodily repair and regeneration. 

Obtaining your personal PRP serum 

Before we can use blood platelets (and their growth factors) to treat a specific health condition or injury, we obtain a small blood sample and mechanically separate your platelets into a highly concentrated serum. 

The process is quick, easy, and straightforward: After drawing a vial of blood from one of your arm veins, we spin the vial in a high-velocity centrifuge machine that pulls the platelets to the top of the vial, ready for immediate use. 

Safe, holistic, proven, and effective 

When we carefully inject your personal PRP serum into your damaged joint, tendon, ligament, or muscle, we’re flooding the area with potent growth factors that get straight to work, repairing local cells and accelerating tissue healing and renewal. Depending on your needs, PRP may: 

• Activate reparative stem cells
• Build fresh connective tissues
• Restore muscle fiber resilience 
• Prompt blood vessel formation
• Repair damaged ligament fibers
• Decrease tendon inflammation 

PRP therapy has become the go-to remedy for all types of painful musculoskeletal conditions, ranging from osteoarthritis-related joint pain and stiffness to acute injuries (sprains and strains), as well as long-standing overuse injuries like bursitis and tendonitis. It’s also an excellent way to accelerate healing following orthopedic surgery, including joint replacement procedures. 

How PRP therapy can help you

If you have any type of orthopedic condition or injury, chances are PRP therapy can help you improve it. It’s especially effective for slowing osteoarthritis-related joint damage and easing associated pain and inflammation.  

We also have great success using PRP therapy to help athletes overcome persistent tendon injuries, such as tennis elbow, Achilles tendonitis, and shoulder tendonitis. PRP injections can be an ideal component of care for: 

• Shoulder pain: Labral tears, rotator cuff injuries, bursitis
• Lower back pain: Sacroiliac dysfunction, facet joint problems 
• Hip pain: Labral tears, bursitis, tendonitis
• Knee pain: Meniscal tears, ACL, MCL, LCL, kneecap instability 
• Ankle and foot pain: Sprains, strains, plantar fasciitis, Achilles dysfunction
• Wrist and hand pain: Carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, ligament tears

When it comes to healing damaged tissues and providing effective pain relief, PRP therapy is an all-natural solution that offers a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatment options like pain medication and surgery.

To find out how PRP therapy can help you, call or click online today to schedule a visit at our location most convenient to you — Atlantis, Boynton Beach, or Wellington, Florida.