Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy is fast gaining acceptance as an incredibly effective way to help repair damaged tissues more quickly. If you’re eager to try this regenerative treatment, you want to know what to expect.
Here at No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román and our team of musculoskeletal specialists have been administering PRP therapy for quite some time now, with great success. To help you better understand the simple and relatively painless process, here’s a look at how we go about healing your damaged tissues with PRP injections.
Before we embark on any treatment plan, we do our due diligence to determine the best path forward for restoring pain-free movement. After an extensive evaluation of your tissue damage, we put together a plan that we think will benefit you most.
PRP therapy often plays a role in our treatment protocols thanks to its ability to help a wide range of soft tissues to heal more quickly, including your:
Whether you have a tendon tear or degenerative arthritis, the odds are that PRP can play an important role in your treatment.
Once we decide that you may benefit from PRP, we set up a time for the treatment. There’s nothing you need to do to prepare in advance, but be sure to wear comfortable clothes that allow us access to your arm and to your damaged tissues — if needed, we have robes as well.
When you arrive, we make you comfortable, and then we draw a small amount of blood — usually from your arm. We then put your blood sample into a special centrifuge that separates your platelets from your red and white blood cells.
Once isolated, we mix the platelets back in with a small amount of your plasma in a sterile environment and put the solution into a syringe. This process of creating your PRP serum only takes about 10-15 minutes.
Once we have your injections ready, we sterilize the areas we’re injecting and then deliver the PRP into strategic locations in your damaged tissues. If warranted, we use advanced imaging technology to guide the injections to get your platelet-rich plasma right where you need it most.
Once we’re finished, you’re free to go. You may experience some soreness at the site of the injections, so you should take it easy immediately after your PRP treatment. Icing your injection site is a great way to avoid soreness or bruising.
Because we’re injecting an autologous substance — meaning, it comes from your own body — into your damaged tissues, this treatment is considered to be quite safe. You shouldn’t have any side effects.
When it comes to results, these are gradual as your platelets begin to create a healing environment in which your tissues can more easily repair themselves. In most cases, our patients see improvements in 6-12 weeks. We may recommend that you undergo a series of PRP injections, which we space apart by a month or two.
If you still have questions about undergoing PRP therapy or if you’re ready to get started, please contact our office to make an appointment.
