Can Platelet-rich Plasma Injections Help With Osteoarthritis?

Each morning, you wonder how your joint pain will affect your day, and you’re finding that this problem is growing. It used to be that your joints became achy after a lot of activity, but these days, it’s no longer a matter of if, but how much, and you’re tired of having pain follow your every movement.

This scenario is one that plays out for millions of Americans. In the United States, about 58.5 million people have arthritis, including 33 million people with osteoarthritis (OA).

Because May is National Arthritis Awareness Month, Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román and the team at No Mercy Sports Medicine want to tackle this important subject. We understand the importance of pain-free movement, which supports your health on every level. 

This is why we’re now focusing on regenerative orthopedics, including platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy, which is making some very positive waves in the world of OA.

What happens in your joints when you have osteoarthritis

To understand the challenges of OA and why it’s been historically difficult to treat, you need to have a clear picture of the underlying disease.

Normally, the joints in your body rely on a soft, connective tissue called cartilage to promote smooth gliding and cushioning inside the joint. This cartilage covers the bones inside the joint to prevent friction.

With OA, which is a wear-and-tear condition, the cartilage begins to break down with use and time. When this happens, your bones can start to rub together, causing pain and inflammation.

Over time, this friction can lead to bits of bone breaking off inside your joint. When they join the loose fragments of cartilage, the pain and inflammation can become worse.

This damage has largely been considered irreversible because cartilage doesn’t have a good source of blood, which means it doesn’t have access to regenerative resources and can;t readily grow back. We aim to fix that through PRP therapy.

PRP therapy and your joints

Until recently, treating OA has boiled down to managing symptoms. With medications and lifestyle practices, there are ways to slow the progression of the disease and manage symptoms, but that doesn’t address the underlying cartilage loss and inflammation with these approaches.

As a regenerative practice, PRP changes all of that. The platelets in your body are first responders when there’s damage, and they release growth factors that call on regenerative resources to help rebuild damaged tissues. 

Platelets also release cytokines that control the inflammatory environment — and inflammation is what’s behind a lot of the joint pain with OA.

With PRP therapy, we harvest your platelets to create a concentrate that we then redirect into your joints. Because we’re using your own blood to create your PRP solution, your body readily accepts and responds to the platelets. 

PRP injections: A road back to activity

While we can tell you that clients here have experienced some great results with PRP injections, we want to draw your attention to a recent study that followed more than 250 patients who used PRP for major joint OA. 

After a year of PRP therapy, study participants had a:

• 49% improvement in pain at six months, and 45% at 12 months
• 44% improvement in function at six months, and 39% at 12 months

When you’re dealing with a progressive and degenerative condition, these improvements are even more significant because it’s not just slowing the OA — it’s encouraging regeneration in your joint.

If you’d like to explore whether platelet-rich plasma injections can help you remain active in joints that aren’t plagued by pain and inflammation, contact No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, today. You can call 305-614-6757 or send a message online.