PRP: How This All-Natural Therapy Relieves Pain in the Shoulders, Knees, and Hips

You get up in the morning and you’re greeted by achy knees or hips that make you wince with every step. Or, perhaps you hit the shower and find washing your hair to be nearly impossible thanks to a painful shoulder. These types of joint problems have a way of hijacking your life in ways you never thought possible. 

Understandably, the thought of surgery isn’t all that appealing as you contemplate a longer road to pain-free movement. Thankfully, there’s another way with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy.

Here at Alpenglow Pain & Wellness, our team of experienced medical providers, led by Dr. Nichelle C. Renk, understands the limitations that joint pain can place on your life. With the goal of offering our patients the services they need to make their way in the world without pain, we’re pleased to offer all-natural PRP therapy.

Here’s a look at how PRP therapy can help you find relief from shoulder, knee, and hip pain.

Behind the pain

The three joints we’re discussing here — shoulders, hips, and knees — are arguably among the hardest working in your body, which makes them more vulnerable to damage.

To give you an idea of the many conditions that can develop in these joints, let’s take a look at some of the more common ones.

Hips

When it comes to hip pain, the primary culprits are bursitis, dislocation, arthritis, labral tears, and tendonitis.

Shoulders

The most common causes of shoulder pain are rotator cuff injuries, impingement syndrome, bursitis, and tendonitis.

Knees

Far and away, the leading cause of knee pain is knee osteoarthritis. Aside from this degenerative condition, knees are also susceptible to ligament and meniscus tears, tendonitis, and sprains.

In most of these cases, soft connective tissues, such as your ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and muscles, are the source of your pain, and some of these tissues have trouble healing due to poor blood supply or complete ruptures.

Finding an all-natural solution for joint pain

There are many solutions for resolving joint pain, but many are interventional, which means that we work around your body’s systems rather than with them. Prime examples of this are surgical repairs of torn ligaments or total joint replacements.

When you’re in pain, however, the thought of surgery is likely not all that welcome, which is why we’re excited about our PRP therapy.

This science-based approach to healing harnesses regenerative resources already found in your own body to help your soft tissues heal more quickly and become stronger.

More specifically, we harvest the platelets and plasma from your own blood. Your platelets play a crucial role in your body’s ability to heal as they contain powerful growth factors and anti-inflammatory agents.

To tap this incredible resource, we draw a sample of your blood and separate out the platelets in a special centrifuge. We mix them with a bit of your plasma, then re-inject this platelet-rich concentrate directly into your damaged tissues where they go to work on rebuilding and repairing your joint.

To give you an idea of the success of this treatment, one report found that there’s “abundant high-quality evidence” that supports the use of PRP therapy for knee damage. 

Confirming PRP’s efficacy, another report gathered findings from 16 randomized controlled studies that all came to the same conclusion — injection of PRP is more efficacious than control injections in patients with symptomatic tendinopathy.

If you’d like to explore how all-natural PRP therapy can help you regain pain-free movement in your joints, contact our office in Anchorage, Alaska, to set up a consultation.