The best and most complete healer you’ll encounter is your own body. Left to its own devices, your body carries out many repairs and maintenance tasks without you giving it a single thought.
The field of regenerative medicine recognizes the incredible power of nature and seeks to find ways to assist your body, rather than override it with less effective artificial approaches.
Regenerative medicine is still an emerging science, but one therapy that’s already used frequently harnesses the healing benefits of blood platelets. Using a sample of your own blood, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) provides bonus levels of the raw materials your body uses to drive its own healing.
As pain management specialists, Dr. James Nassiri and the team at Westside Pain Specialists are PRP experts. When you understand the theory behind PRP, you see how it’s potentially a game-changer for treatment of a wide range of conditions, including degenerative joint diseases.
Platelets may be best known for their clotting abilities when you have a cut or other bleeding injury. With direct pressure, a bandage, or wound dressing, blood flow slows and stops as platelets begin to form a matrix that starts the healing process.
However, clotting factors aren’t all that platelets carry. They also have growth hormones, chemical messengers used by the body to direct healing processes. One of the jobs of growth hormones is controlling the conversion of stem cells into specific tissue cells needed for healing.
Patients and doctors alike prefer to turn toward drug-free, natural alternatives, whenever they’re effective.
PRP comes from your own blood sample, about the same amount as taken for routine blood testing, and like blood tests, this sample is centrifuged to separate the heavier red blood cells, medium-weight platelets, and the lighter plasma.
Extracted platelets are then mixed with plasma to create a serum in which platelets and their growth factors are concentrated. This is platelet-rich plasma, and it’s ready for strategic injection to boost healing efficiency.
It’s logical to wonder, if your blood already supplies platelets, why extracting and re-injecting helps with healing.
Perhaps a comparison could be made to a carpenter building a house. If the lumber supply is limited, the carpenter can only build so quickly. Add an additional truck of wood and construction proceeds at the carpenter’s pace.
So it is with your body. In the case of tissue inside joints, like cartilage, tendons, and ligaments, blood supply is already limited. Injecting PRP adds healing resources beyond what the body can supply naturally.
This boost of platelets means there’s no need to wait for the usual blood flow. Many PRP patients report reduced pain and improved mobility after starting PRP injections. Virtually any soft tissue injury or chronic condition potentially benefits from PRP therapy.
Contact Westside Pain Specialists today by calling the most convenient location, either in Beverly Hills or Rancho Cucamonga, California.
You can learn more about the healing benefits of PRP therapy as you’re evaluated for this exciting new treatment that works well alongside your other medications or therapies. Book your appointment now.
We offer treatment for neck pain, back pain, sports injuries, along with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Call us to book your appointment today.
