If you live with knee arthritis, you know how painful and debilitating it can be. But for many people, the idea of undergoing invasive knee replacement surgery is unappealing, intimidating, and scary. That is one of the reasons researchers and physicians have spent years developing new techniques and therapies for knee arthritis that spare patients from all of the risks, costs, and downtime that come with surgery. One such approach that we use with great success at OrthoMiami is platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy. PRP therapy is a safe and effective way to significantly improve the quality of life for people with knee arthritis without the need for surgery
How PRP Therapy Works
When we damage soft tissue through injury, trauma, or the simple passage of time, our body’s initial healing response is to rush platelet cells to the affected area. That’s because platelets contain powerful healing factors that repair injured tissue and provide assistance to stem cells in damaged muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
PRP therapy takes this natural process and essentially turbocharges it. Here’s how it works. We take a sample of a patient’s blood and place it in a specially designed centrifuge that separates the platelets and their healing and growth factors from the other elements of the blood. Dr. Ceballos takes those growth factors and injects them directly into the arthritic knee joint or injured area, where they jumpstart repairing and healing by dividing and building new tissue.
PRP treatment typically takes only a few hours at our offices, including preparation, injection, and recovery. It involves no anesthesia, and recovery time is minimal.
Safe and Effective Treatment For Knee Arthritis
PRP therapy is safer, cheaper, and less burdensome than surgery, steroid injections, or other traditional approaches to knee arthritis. But the most important feature of PRP therapy for knee arthritis is that it works
Multiple studies have shown how effective PRP therapy can be for knee arthritis. Researchers in a 2018 study concluded that:
“Platelet-rich plasma therapy is a simple, low-cost and minimally invasive intervention which is feasible to deliver in primary care to treat degenerative lesions of articular cartilage of the knee. This therapy appears to have minimal associated adverse events and may have beneficial effects in terms of pain, health utility, patient satisfaction and goal-orientated outcomes.”
Schedule an Appointment at OrthoMiami Today To Learn More About How PRP Therapy Can Help You With Knee Arthritis
At OrthoMiami, we understand the challenges and struggles that come with knee arthritis. We are committed to using the most advanced and effective methods to relieve pain, repair joints, and restore mobility to patients suffering from the condition, including using PRP therapy when other, more conservative treatments have failed to work. The OrthoMiami team always welcomes new patients and can generally schedule new patient appointments within a couple of days.
Please contact us today at (305) 596-2828 to schedule your appointment. We look forward to meeting you.
