All-natural platelet-rich plasma: harness your own body’s power to heal
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy is an innovative new treatment that has gained popularity in recent years for its use to accelerate healing, especially after injury or surgery. PRP treatment is an all-natural therapy that uses your own blood to extract and concentrate the portion of your plasma that contains a high concentration of platelets and growth factors, which are part of your body’s innate healing machinery.
Platelets are small blood cells that are well-known for their clotting ability and also play a crucial role in your body’s healing processes. Platelets stimulate healing by releasing growth factors and other proteins that are necessary to regenerate damaged tissue. By extracting and concentrating these platelets from your own blood and then injecting them back into the area where tissue has been damaged, PRP can promote healing and regeneration in the body at precisely at the site of damage. By shortening healing times, we’ll get you back to enjoying the sports or activities you enjoy most.
PRP treatment of joints, tendons, ligaments, and more
PRP has been used effectively to treat a variety of conditions, including:
- Osteoarthritis: PRP injections into joints have been shown to reduce pain and improve joint function in patients with osteoarthritis. PRP injections can also help promote cartilage growth and slow down the progression of the disease.
- Tendon and ligament injuries: Joint injections of PRP can help promote the healing of tendon and ligament injuries, such as tennis elbow, Achilles tendonitis, and rotator cuff injuries. PRP injections can also help reduce pain and improve function in these areas.
- Muscle injuries: PRP injections can help promote the healing of muscle injuries, such as strains and tears.
- Post-surgical healing: One of the first uses of PRP was to accelerate healing after bone or plastic surgeries. Now post-surgical PRP injections are widely used to speed up healing after muscle, tendon, or ligament surgeries, which are notorious for long recovery times.
- Hair loss: PRP injections into the scalp can help stimulate hair growth in patients with androgenic alopecia, a type of hair loss that occurs due to genetics and hormone imbalances. More information about PRP injection for hair loss can be found here.
- Skin rejuvenation: PRP injections can be used in aesthetic services to promote skin rejuvenation. PRP injections can help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, improve skin texture, and promote collagen growth. SkinPen with PRP microneedling services are also available at Cascade Integrative Medicine.
What is involved in the PRP procedure?
The procedure for isolating your body’s platelet-rich plasma is virtually pain-free. The PRP isolation procedure begins with a simple blood draw by one of our physicians. Using sterile technique, your whole blood is prepared and then spun in a state-of-the art centrifuge, which allows separation of the blood into three fractions: (1) blood cells, (2) platelet-poor plasma, and (3) platelet-rich plasma. The platelet-rich plasma contains plasma, the liquid portion of blood, and platelets, which are a type of blood cell that plays a critical role in healing. We use the highest quality PRP system available, which produces PRP containing platelets that are concentrated 5-10 times higher than found in whole blood. PRP is highly enriched in growth factors, which stimulate the body’s innate healing mechanisms. The platelet-rich plasma is then injected into the target tissue to promote the regeneration and healing of damaged tissues.
How does platelet-rich plasma work?
PRP, which contains concentrated platelets, works by releasing growth factors directly at the site of injury. These growth factors, in turn, stimulate stem cells to rapidly produce new tissue at the injury site, which is why PRP is so effective after tissue damage or surgery. There is virtually no risk for allergic reaction or rejection, because the patient’s own blood is used.
PRP - ISSAQUAH, WA
When it comes to platelet-rich plasma, quality matters, and only the best will do
When researching PRP treatment providers, be aware that not all PRP is created equal. Many providers advertise platelet-rich plasma therapy using cheap and inconsistent preparation systems that yield PRP barely concentrated above whole blood (often as low as 20% above whole blood). Low quality platelet-rich plasma of this sort is not as effective and cannot produce the results seen with high quality PRP.
At our office, we’re committed to providing the highest quality PRP available anywhere, consistently achieving concentrations of 500%-1000% that of whole blood to deliver the most effective PRP therapies to our patients. We use the ProGen PRP Eclipse system which is manufactured here in the United States and is FDA-cleared to ensure safety, reliability, and consistent performance for our patients.
