Heal Your Rotator Cuff Tear with Platelet-Rich-Plasma (PRP)
A Rotator Cuff tear are one of the most common causes of chronic shoulder pain and disability of the upper body.
Rotator Cuff injuries are common among athletes, but they are not limited to this demographic. In fact, injuries can occur to virtually anyone during everyday activities or with chronic overuse. Approximately 7.5 million visits are made to physicians’ offices per year for shoulder pain. Over 50% of these physician visits result in a diagnosis of rotator cuff tendonopathy, with tendon tears and tendonosis being most common.
What is a Rotator Cuff Tear?
Your rotator cuff is a group of four muscles and tendons that stabilize your shoulder pain and let you lift and rotate your arms. There are two kinds of rotator cuff tears- A partial tear is when the tendon that protects the top of your shoulder is frayed or damaged. The other is a complete tear. That’s one that goes all the way through the tendon or pulls the tendon off the bone.
Symptoms
You can’t always feel a torn rotator cuff. But in some cases, you might:
- Have trouble raising your arm
- Feel pain when you move your arm in certain ways or lie on it
- Have weakness in your shoulder
- Be unable to lift things like you normally do
- Hear clicking or popping when you move your arm
Options for Treatment
Surgery is the traditional way to treat rotator cuff tears. However, surgery has risks associated with it. Risks such as infection, damage to surrounding nerves and blood vessels. Recovery after this surgery can take up to 6 months depending on the severity of the injury. Stiffness, weakness, chronic pain, or incomplete healing after surgery can also occur.
Platelet-rich plasma therapy, a treatment for aiding the regeneration of ligament and tendon injuries, is helping to shorten rehabilitation time and often eliminates the need for rotator cuff surgery. Platelet-rich plasma therapy regenerates and repairs damaged tissues in the area which then stimulates stem cell repair. The plasma is created by taking your own blood, spinning it down, and then injecting it into the area we are treating. It can be used for facial aesthetics to create collagen, or for tendons/muscles/ligaments to stimulate repair.
