Between 22 and 30% of adults throughout the United States suffer from severe joint pain. If you're one of them, you'll already know how debilitating your condition can become. At Carl Gittens, MD Regenerative Medicine, we have one particularly effective option for joint pain relief; stem cell therapy. Alongside Plasma-rich Platelet (PRP) therapy, it's popular among our patients who suffer from joint pain. You may be wondering whether pursuing the therapy is worth it. We're here to explain some of the signs you may need either of these therapies and how they work.
We always recommend trying traditional physiotherapy to tackle joint pain. Although it doesn't produce immediate results, over time, it will get you to where you need to be. Keeping your joint moving is essential for helping it heal. Additionally, it enables you to return to a normal range of motion.
Unfortunately, there's no way of predicting when physiotherapy will start to work. Like most clinicians, we find that the recovery period varies from person to person. When our patients are struggling, we recommend that they try stem cell therapy. Stem cell therapy helps the joint to heal faster, which means it acts as an ideal adjunct to your physiotherapy.
Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) are traditionally used to treat joint pain. They're effective because they disrupt a chemical that causes your body to produce prostaglandins. In doing so, they reduce the amount of pain and inflammation you experience.
A lot of our patients are wary of relying on NSAIDs too much, and there's a good reason for that. NSAIDs also damage the lining of your stomach. Although they won't pose a significant risk when you only use them occasionally, continuous use increases your chances of developing a gastric ulcer. By using stem cell therapy or PRP, you can reduce inflammation without increasing your risk of developing a stomach ulcer.
Recovering from a sports injury is particularly challenging. They usually arise from significant trauma, but if you've been playing sports for years, the affected joint will have suffered wear and tear too. Because of this, many of our patients find that they require rapid advanced therapies.
Unlike depending on drugs and traditional physio, PRP and stem cell therapy can hasten your recovery period. When you're keen to return to the sport you love, this means you don't have to wait too long to continue enjoying it again.
If you're certain that stem cell therapy and PRP could be right for you, we're going to explain how they work. Stem cell therapy involves taking some of the younger cells in your body and injecting them into the site where you have joint pain. We use it to treat patients with a variety of medical backgrounds. Once the stem cells are present at the injury site, they turn into cartilage cells. In our experience, this reduces the patient's recovery time and lessens the amount of pain they're experiencing.
PRP involves taking a sample of blood from your arm and spinning it in a centrifuge to separate the plasma from other blood products. We then re-inject the plasma-rich platelets back into your injury site. When there are plenty of plasma-rich platelets at your injury site, they'll initiate the healing cascade that allows you to recover from your injury faster.
At Carl Gittens, MD, Regenerative Medicine, we offer PRP and stem cell therapy as an option for joint pain relief. To make an appointment, call (722) 288-4111. For Miami location, please call (305) 351-0731. For Palm Beach Gardens, please call (561) 337-3351.
