What Is PRP Treatment?

PRP treatment, which is also known as platelet rich plasma, has become the preferred treatment of elite athletes in order to help them recover from injury. PRP treatment involves injecting the patient with their own treated blood to accelerate, advance and encourage the healing of soft tissues. More recently, PRP injections are also being used to promote hair growth and reduce hair loss.

How Does Platelet Rich Plasma Treatment Work?

Platelets are small circular cell fragments found in blood and assist in clotting. Moreover, platelets also contain proteins which have wound healing properties. The main idea behind PRP treatment is that by injecting a sufficient amount of platelets into tissues that are highly inflamed and/or damaged promotes healing.

Treatment begins by drawing a sample of blood from the patient and using special medical equipment to separate the platelets from all of the other components of the blood. The resulting highly concentrated platelets have as much as ten times the healing properties over regular blood.

Benefits of Platelet Rich Plasma Injections

Here are some of the available treatments utilizing PRP Therapy:

• Prevention of hair loss, by injecting the platelets right into the scalp in order reduce inflammation associated with hair loss.
• Healing of tissues such as ligaments, muscles and tendons. Since ligaments are generally the one of the slowest tissues to heal, PRP injections present a great way to accelerate healing for patients that have ligament injuries.
• Reduction of inflammation as a result of osteoarthritis.
• Increased hair growth with greater hair density.
• Reduction of symptoms associated with chronic patellar tendinopathy, a common knee injury in athletes.
• Post surgery injections are used to decrease recovery time.

How Long Is The Recovery Time After PRP Treatment?

Usually, it is only the affected area which is treated with a PRP injection that requires rest. Regular daily activities can be resumed within 30 minutes after the PRP treatment. More severe injuries may require additional injections over several weeks or even several months. Generally, patients report that the majority of pain caused by their injuries subside within 3 months after completion of the PRP treatment.