More than 92 million people in the United States report doctor-diagnosed arthritis or arthritis-like symptoms, which is to say joint pain and inflammation. While this number is already enormous, experts predict it will grow even higher as the population ages.
If you’ve joined the ranks of people who are hobbled by joint pain and you want to find solutions that extend beyond taking some ibuprofen, we want to introduce you to platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy.
As our name suggests — Pain Medicine Consultants — our team is dedicated to finding ways to help our patients find relief from pain, allowing them to get back to their active and happy lives.
While our pain management toolkit is quite large, we want to focus on the role that PRP therapy can play in alleviating your joint pain and restoring mobility.
To appreciate how PRP therapy works, it’s helpful to understand the overall healing process in your body. When there’s damage, your body kicks off a four-stage wound-healing cascade that includes:
As you can see, from the very start of your wound-healing process, platelets play a critical role.
Through PRP therapy, we collect and concentrate platelets from your own blood and redirect them into your damaged joints to jumpstart and support the healing process we outline above.
When we introduce a platelet concentrate into your blood through PRP injections, our goal is to relieve your pain and to create an optimal healing environment.
PRP therapy involves introducing cytokines that can regulate the inflammatory process in your joints so you get relief from pain.
At the same time, your platelets release growth factors that encourage repair and regeneration for longer pain relief and mobility. Our goal is to provide your joints with the resources they need to not only fight off degeneration, but to rebuild and become stronger.
Another benefit of PRP therapy for addressing joint pain is the fact that we harvest the cells from your own body. This means that your body readily accepts the treatments and the injections work with your body rather than around it, which promotes healing.
So whether you’re struggling with achy knees, hips, shoulders, or another joint, adding PRP injections to your treatment arsenal can help in your efforts to relieve the pain and restore your ability to move around freely.
To find out whether you’re a good candidate for PRP therapy, please contact us at one of our offices in Pleasant Hill, Corte Madera, or Pleasanton, California, to schedule an appointment.
