Walking down the street — never mind getting out on the links or on the court — has become an exercise in discomfort thanks to chronic knee pain. Dealing with knee pain places significant limits on your life at times, and you’re tired of being imprisoned by achy joints.
If this sounds familiar, it may be time to give platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy a try. At No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román is both a sports medicine and regenerative medicine specialist, and he has extensive experience helping patients regain musculoskeletal health through PRP treatments.
Here’s a look at how PRP therapy may be the answer you’re looking for when it comes to chronic knee pain.
The overarching goal of regenerative medicine is to use healing resources that already exist in the human body. A perfect example of this is your platelets — flat cells in your blood that are mostly associated with clotting.
The role of platelets in the wound healing cascade extends far beyond stopping the bleeding. Once the platelets form a clot and the threat of bleeding has subsided, they release growth factors and cytokines that call on healing resources and address inflammation.
With our PRP therapy, we harvest platelets from your own body by drawing a sample of your blood. We then create a concentrate of these platelets and inject the solution into areas where your body needs a boost in healing, such as your knees.
If you’re struggling with chronic knee pain, it’s likely due to a degenerative condition like osteoarthritis (OA) or a hard-to-heal problem like a meniscus tear.
The incidence of knee OA in the United States has doubled since the mid-20th century and today affects nearly 20% of adults age 45 years and older. One of the biggest hurdles when it comes to knee osteoarthritis, in which cartilage breaks down, is that cartilage doesn’t enjoy a good blood supply. What this means is that your cartilage is unable to regenerate and your knee OA can get progressively worse.
With PRP therapy, Dr. Irizarry-Román delivers healing resources to this cartilage, giving it the tools it needs to repair and rebuild. One study found that PRP injections for knee OA appeared to be more successful in relieving pain and restoring function than placebos and other common treatments, such as hyaluronic acid.
If you have a musculoskeletal injury such as a torn meniscus, you’re facing the same problem as knee OA — a lack of blood supply. Through PRP, we can bypass this deficit and deliver healing resources.
Whatever the issue behind your chronic knee pain, the odds are good that you’re a candidate for PRP therapy. To get on the road to moving without knee pain again, contact No Mercy Sports Medicine to schedule an appointment.
