How PRP and Stem Cell Therapy Can Delay or Prevent the Need for Surgery

Your body is an incredibly complex structure that relies on each component to, quite literally, carry its weight. So when something goes wrong, say in a major joint or a tendon, your life can be limited in some serious ways. Until recently, the solution has been to bypass Mother Nature and repair the tissue or find a suitable replacement. Although effective, these surgical remedies are invasive and add considerably to your overall recovery time.

With regenerative medicine, namely, stem cell and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapies, our goal is to help your body regenerate and repair itself from within for stronger, more sustainable, results. All without resorting to surgery.

At Delta Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, with Dr. Michael Hood at the helm, our team of experts understands the complexities of your musculoskeletal system. To better serve you, we stay abreast of the latest treatment protocols that will help you lead a happy and active life, and we’re particularly pleased with the results we’ve garnered through regenerative medicine. 

Read on to explore how stem cell therapy and PRP therapy are helping our patients delay, and even avoid, invasive surgery.

The power within

The goal of regenerative medicine, according to the National Institute of Health, is “the process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to age, disease, damage, or congenital defects.”

Although this definition may sound simple enough, the research behind tapping these regenerative resources has been enormous, and it’s still ongoing. Though we’re only scratching the surface of the potential of regenerative medicine, orthopedists around the world, including ourselves, are already finding great success in two forms of regenerative medicine:

Stem cell therapy

Your body is made up of trillions of cells, each designed to tend to one specific area in your body. Stem cells, on the other hand, have the unique ability to transform themselves into other cells and then multiply indefinitely as that cell.

PRP therapy

Your blood contains platelets that are largely responsible for clotting your blood. They also contain powerful growth factors, or proteins, the help your body heal and repair itself.

By redirecting these resources, we’re able to give your damaged tissue the tools it needs to heal from within.

How regenerative medicine can help you

As we mentioned, the use of stem cell and PRP therapies is only just beginning. To date, we’ve been able to help our patients delay or prevent surgery for any number of orthopedic problems using these therapies, including:

• Degenerative arthritis
• Tendonitis
• Sports injuries
• Soft tissue tears

Though preventing surgery is the ultimate goal, if we do have to repair a complete tear, such as a ligament tear, we can use these regenerative therapies to help speed up your recovery.

Tapping your platelets and stem cells

In order to tap these incredible resources, our team turns to the best resource possible — your own body. For our stem cell therapy, we harvest the stem cells that lie in your bone marrow and fatty tissue and redirect them to where you need them most.

For our PRP therapy, we draw your own blood and isolate your platelets, creating a concentrate that we reinject into your damaged tissue.

Both of these treatments are noninvasive, and we perform them on an outpatient basis, which means you’re free to get on with your day afterward.

During the weeks following your treatment, your body goes to work on a cellular level to regenerate healthier tissue. Bear in mind that you may need a series of treatments to obtain the best results.