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I've had chronic tennis elbow off and on for the last 10 years. The last two years, it's been more on than off. My surgeon is recommending something called PRP. It's injected into the area to help kick start healing in that area. What can you tell me about this?
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Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) (also known as blood injection therapy)) is a medical treatment being used for a wide range of musculoskeletal problems. Platelet-rich plasma refers to a sample of serum (blood) plasma that has as much as four times more than the normal amount of platelets. This treatment enhances the body’s natural ability to heal itself and is used to improve healing and shorten recovery time from acute and chronic soft tissue injuries.
Blood injection therapy of this type has been used for knee osteoarthritis, degenerative cartilage, spinal fusion, bone fractures that don’t heal, and poor wound healing. This treatment technique is fairly new in the sports medicine treatment of musculoskeletal problems, but gaining popularity quickly.
Patients with chronic tendinitis (e.g., tennis elbow, patellar tendinitis or jumper’s knee, Achilles tendinitis) have also benefited from this treatment. It’s even being tried on hernias, labral (shoulder cartilage) tears, meniscal tears of the knee, and ankle sprains. Some surgeons are using it more and more with any orthopedic surgery involving the soft tissues to augment (reinforce) bone or ligamentous graft materials already being used.
In the case of chronic tennis elbow (also known as chronic tendinopathy), the PRP contains inflammatory cells called cytokines that do, indeed, kick start the process of healing. These cytokines act as stimulants to get a healing response in tissues that have scarred over without adequate repair. The stalled effort to repair the tissues naturally gets back on track with a little help from PRP.
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