Osteoarthritis is the most common form of joint disease, common in adults over 45, affecting about 33 million people in the United States. It’s a wear-and-tear disease, often brought on simply by the rigors of daily living.
A progressive condition without a cure, osteoarthritis is typically treated with a focus on symptom management until pain and loss of mobility reach the point that total joint replacements become necessary.
At South Central Family Practice Clinic in Soldotna, Alaska, we often recommend adding platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections to an osteoarthritis management plan.
PRP therapy is a drug-free alternative that works well alongside your existing arthritis treatments using a personal resource, your own blood, to reduce pain and improve mobility. Here’s how this all-natural game-changer can make a difference for you.
Most people know platelets as the clotting factors that are part of your blood. Platelets also contain proteins that act as messengers for healing processes called growth factor hormones.
When you have an injury, your blood delivers platelets and other building blocks of healing. One factor that establishes how fast you heal is how quickly your blood delivers enough of these raw materials to the injury site.
The concept behind PRP is simple. We harvest a small amount of whole blood (about the same amount as taken for common blood tests), then isolate platelets and blood plasma in a centrifuge.
Extracting this plasma with a high concentration of platelets, we then have an injectable source of raw materials to aid recovery at the site of an injury. It’s completely safe since it’s taken from your blood.
Though PRP assists your body’s healing processes, it can’t reverse the progress of osteoarthritis, at least not yet. Research continues into how PRP works as well as what it might be capable of treating in the future.
However, PRP injections do contribute to the goals of osteoarthritis management, namely pain reduction, improved joint function, and slowing deterioration of the arthritic joint. Though the mechanisms of PRP aren’t yet fully understood, PRP therapy is thought to:
How you respond to PRP therapy depends on each patient. PRP doesn’t provide all the resources your body needs to accomplish these goals. Instead, it controls certain processes within the overall healing picture. Individual responses to PRP therapy vary.
Though in the early stages of refinement, PRP developed a foothold as an arthritis treatment option because it’s a natural alternative derived from the patient’s own tissue, delivered in a manner that has only a small risk of side effects.
There’s a slight risk of infection from PRP treatments, about the same risk as you experience with allergy shots or blood samples.
PRP has already been an osteoarthritis game-changer for many patients. Find out more by contacting South Central Family Practice Clinic and booking a consultation by phone or online today.
