Regenerative medicine is the wave of the future. It is the process of replacing or “regenerating” human cells, tissues, or organs to restore or establish normal function. This field holds the promise of regenerating damaged tissues, ligaments, and tendons by stimulating the body’s own repair mechanisms to heal. Current estimates indicate that approximately one in three Americans could potentially benefit from regenerative medicine.
What Is Regenerative Injection Therapy?
Regenerative Injection Therapy (RIT) is a minimally invasive injection procedure that stimulates the body’s natural healing mechanisms to repair damaged ligaments and tendons using organic substances such as blood plasma. RIT includes prolotherapy, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection therapy, and other injections that help regenerate tissues.
RIT is not a new technique. The concept of irritating tissue to promote healing dates as far back as the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates treated Olympic javelin throwers with unstable shoulders by touching what he described as a “slender hot iron” to the ligaments holding the shoulder joint together. The heat would irritate the ligament capsule, causing it to tighten up. (Interestingly, modern-day orthopedic surgeons use heat probes and lasers to do the same thing surgically!)
Prolotherapy was used in France to treat hernias before modern surgical techniques became available. The techniques we use today were developed in the 1930s by G.S. Hackett, MD, a surgeon from Ohio, along with other MDs and DOs. Hackett coined the term “prolotherapy” because his initial work demonstrated that the new tissue laid down during the healing process was new healthy tissue, not scar tissue.
What Is Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Injection?
Your blood is comprised of red and white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. The plasma in your blood is extremely efficient at carrying nutrients, hormones, and other regenerative factors all throughout the body, while at the same time removing waste. It is an essential part of the body’s regenerative process that often gets overlooked. Platelet-rich plasma therapy is a procedure in which a sample of your blood is taken and the plasma is isolated by centrifugation (using inertia to separate the blood into its individual components). This process enables the plasma to concentrate and become saturated with regenerative platelets. Once it has been isolated, PRP can be injected directly into injury sites using precision image-guidance systems. Once the plasma has been injected, the concentrated platelets can begin supplementing cellular regeneration.
Platelets are naturally saturated with compounds known as growth factors. Essentially, they contain many of the necessary components needed to repair or replace damaged tissues in the body. Your body already utilizes this regenerative method, just on a slower, less effective scale. The simplest way to describe PRP therapy is a reallocation of your body’s natural resources. We are extracting platelet-rich plasma from your blood, where the resources are plentiful, and they are injected into an injury site, where they are scarce and desperately needed. PRP is utilizing your natural healing process and making it as efficient as possible.
Using PRP for Common Injuries
At the Center of Excellence in Pain and Regenerative Medicine, we treat damaged ligaments and tendons in the body from head to toe. Joint injuries are notorious for acute pain and chronic injury as they are subjected to high levels of strain and wear. We use platelet-rich plasma injections to stimulate cellular regeneration.
The most common injuries we treat using PRP are as follows:
- Osteoarthritis and joint pain
- Rotator cuff injuries
- Shoulder pain and instability
- Tennis and golfer’s elbow
- Hamstring and hip strains
- Knee sprains and instability
- Patellofemoral syndrome and patellar tendinosis
- Ankle sprains
- Achilles tendinosis and plantar fasciitis
- Neck, mid-back, and lower back pain
- Sports injuries, sprains, strains, and tears
Once you have completed a consultation with a specialist, we can pinpoint the source of your pain and use enhanced image-guidance tools to ensure the plasma is delivered directly into the injury site. This allows for the highest potency of platelets to be exposed to the damaged tissues, providing the building blocks for cellular regeneration.
The Center of Excellence in Pain and Regenerative Medicine is a leading provider of quality regenerative medical procedures that provide lasting results for repair and rejuvenation. Using only the most innovative and cutting-edge technologies and therapies, our experts offer a higher standard of care to patients suffering from joint pain, back pain, the signs of aging, and more. Established in 2019, our main goal is to provide regenerative medicine and concierge-based pain medicine. We aim to make a difference in the way we practice medicine by spending the extra time to educate, heal, and care for our patients.
Dr. Roshni N. Patel is an Interventional Pain Management Physician and she founded and established a pain management center at Grove Hill Medical Center and practiced in New Britain before moving on to open the Center of Excellence in Pain and Regenerative Medicine in Farmington, CT. Her practice offers interventional pain management and regenerative medicine procedures for patients seeking pain relief and improved quality of life. Dr. Patel is quadruple board certified in pain medicine, headache medicine, neurology, and brain injury medicine. She uses your body’s natural healing ability to repair damage to bones, muscles, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments non-surgically. With her quadruple board certifications, Dr. Patel is one of only two physicians worldwide in advanced regenerative pain management techniques.
Call 860.397.6179 to book a consultation and visit: www.painregenmd.com.