Treating Injuries with Platelet-Rich Plasma

Baptist Health Louisville: Treating Injuries with Platelet-Rich Plasma

Sports medicine specialist W. Michael Hughes Jr., DO, describes how doctors can use a patient’s own blood to heal chronic injuries when surgery isn’t an option.

Treating Injuries with Platelet-Rich Plasma Health Talks Transcript

Michael Hughes Jr., DO, Sports Medicine
Ninety percent of sports-related injuries are non-operative. Now again, sports being a broad term, but we can use a lot of different treatment modalities and one of those being platelet-rich plasma. That’s one of the non-surgical options that we use. Platelets help with inflammation. They help to heal some of these chronic injuries that we see.

Sharon Toms, Louisville, Kentucky
I was not interested in surgery at all, so I talked to Dr. Hughes, and we talked about having PRP. I was very excited about having that choice.

Dr. Hughes
Platelet-rich plasma is a process where we take the patient’s blood. We centrifuge it in the office, and this helps to separate the platelets from the rest of the blood product. And then, it comes down to an injection much like some people have had a cortisone shot.

Toms
It was actually a lot easier than what I expected, as far as, you know, you always think about pain because my shoulder was very painful. So, I had the treatment, then I went through physical therapy for a couple of months. And I could tell it was strengthening my arm and my shoulder. It felt like as time went on, it was doing good, and I was feeling better. I’m fully recovered and back to riding my bike.