Your body is an amazing factory that produces all the substances it needs to keep you in good repair. But some injuries tax your body’s capabilities. And, in some instances, your body might not work as efficiently and quickly as it should.
Our expert rheumatologists at the Rheumatology Center of New Jersey want to help your body heal itself. That’s why we offer state-of-the art supportive treatments such as platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy.
You may benefit from PRP if you have chronic pain, arthritis, a sports injury, or trouble healing quickly.
In most cases, PRP therapy starts with your own blood. We quickly and easily do a blood draw through your arm to remove about the amount of blood you’d normally give for a blood test. In some cases, we recommend using donated PRP.
The PRP serum created with your own (autologous) blood only takes a few minutes to prepare. We spin the blood in a specialized, sterile centrifuge to isolate the cell fragments called platelets.
Platelets are the portion of your blood that helps clot your blood to stop bleeding. They’re filled with special proteins called growth factors and cytokines. By creating a concentrated serum with the isolated platelets and a small amount of plasma (the liquid part of your blood), we deliver extra healing power directly to the site of injury or pain through a series of injections.
Even though PRP has only made it into mainstream medicine in the last decade or so, doctors have used growth factors to heal wounds since at least the 1940s. Doctors have used PRP to treat wounds and even to heal chronic skin ulcers.
When you get a cut or other skin wound, blood rushes platelets to the injury site. Once the platelets congregate at the wound, they form a fibrin clot. The clot stops the bleeding and recruits other healing elements to the site.
The more platelets you have, the more healing takes place. That’s how PRP helps you quickly form the clots that stop bleeding and allow the healing to begin.
Even if you don’t have a wound with external bleeding, you could bleed internally if you’ve torn tissues in your joints. That’s one reason the injured area starts to swell and bruise.
We may recommend PRP to deliver more cytokines and growth factors to the injury site so your body can start the mending and rebuilding process sooner and do it more efficiently. We use PRP to aid a variety of conditions, including:
You may need a series of PRP treatments to get full healing and pain relief.
Find out if PRP can help heal your wounds or injuries by contacting our expert rheumatologists today. Our offices are located in Somerville, Flemington, and Monroe, New Jersey.
