Humans are no strangers to broken bones — in 2019, there were about 178 million new fractures worldwide and 455 million cases of short- and long-term symptoms of fractures. In other words, hundreds of millions of people have broken bones, and it's safe to say that each and every one has the same goals — they want the bone to heal quickly, strongly, and correctly.
As a family and sports medicine specialist, Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román very much shares these goals. At No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, he’s seen a fair share of fractures, and he’s excited by new treatments that can improve outcomes — namely platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections.
Dr. Irizarry-Román has a few priorities when he sees musculoskeletal injuries like fractures.
Diagnosing and treating the problem quickly can greatly influence how well you come out on the other side. Your tissues can start the healing process very quickly, so it’s critical to make sure that they heal correctly.
In many cases, fixation — braces, casts, boots, and slings, for example — serves as a frontline treatment for fractures. Fixation techniques are designed to bring the broken ends of the bone together so they can reset the right way.
One of the fracture complications you want to avoid is healing problems, such as delayed union or non-union, which occur in 10% of fractures. Proper fixation can help with this.
Once your bones are set into the right positions and you’ve immobilized the area, you typically have to rely on time for the ends to fuse together and for the bone to rebuild.
While fixation and time are still valid and effective approaches for fractures, the medical community has now upped the game with PRP injections.
At the heart of these injections are your own platelets, harvested from your blood. Platelets are the tiny cell fragments responsible for kicking off the healing systems in your body.
PRP therapy isolates and concentrates these platelets and redirects them into areas that need a little boost in healing resources. In the case of a fracture, the goal is to set the stage for bone remodeling, which includes encouraging osteoblasts that help rebuild the damaged hard tissues.
It’s beneficial to start PRP therapy as soon as possible in order to guide early remodeling to ensure that your broken bones grow back together correctly and soundly. With the addition of PRP therapy in fracture care, you can often shorten your journey through recovery, getting you back to full use more quickly.
If you’d like to learn more about the important role that PRP injections can play in early fracture care, please contact No Mercy Sports Medicine by calling 305-614-6757, or use the online messaging form to schedule an appointment.
