PRP stands for platelet-rich plasma. Even that probably does not make sense to most patients, so just to explain it is we take the patient’s own blood and then he put it through a process which is called centrifuge. When we spin the blood around it nicely separates the blood into different components, so you have the red cells, the white cells and the platelets and plasma which has different grades to it.
I am an upper limb surgeon I mainly operate on shoulders and elbows. I also tend to use PRP injections it in shoulders and the elbows. In the elbow the biggest place to use it is in the outside of the elbow for tennis elbow also known as lateral epicondylitis or natural epicondylitis tendinopathy, but layman’s term is tennis elbow. It is one of the commonest uses of PRP because we know that literature has showed the steroids that are currently used are not as effective. In fact, there is evidence out there that suggests steroids in most cases only have a short-term effect. Beyond that the problem comes back and occasionally comes back worse.
We are designed in such a way that when we injure ourselves, we heal. So, something quite simple like for example tennis elbow in fact at a microscopic level is an injury to your tendons on the outside of the elbow. Now we know that given enough time and good physiotherapy on top can solve most of the problems. However, there are people that still, despite time and good therapy, do not heal. So, what PRP does and what we call a group of substances called biologics does is enhance the healing and makes it faster.
The way PRP injections work is that we take your own blood, concentrate the growth factors and other substances within those cells that promote healing. We then inject it in an area which are low in growth factors and needs more to allow it to use those growth factors and then helps it heal.
