What Is Regenerative Injection Therapy?
As the name suggests, these injection therapies help regenerate damaged tissue. Regenerate what you might ask? Tendons, ligaments, cartilage, muscles and nerves! This is important because more often than not, chronic pain is a result of unresolved tissue damage. So, these injections help chronic pain by giving your body another chance at healing!
What Are The Different Types Of Regenerative Injections?
- Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP)
- Prolotherapy (Proliferative Therapy)
- Neural Therapy (Subtypes include perineural, neural prolotherapy and neural therapy)
Platelet-Rich Plasma
PRP is the most technical of the therapies because it requires your own blood to work. The first step involves drawing the patient’s blood. Afterwards, that blood gets spun in a centrifuge. This will separate the different parts of the blood. One of those layers contains the platelet-rich plasma (PRP). The PRP is the part that is injected into the injured area.
These platelets release the growth factors (PDGF), among other important healing factors. In fact, the growth factors can stimulate stem cells to produce brand new tissue. So, this could mean more production of cartilage tissue, ligament tissue and so on.
Fortunately, these injections are very safe. First off, there is no risk of allergic reaction or rejection because PRP is part of your own blood.
Secondly, the majority of the risk has to do with the site of injection. This means the risk changes depending on the area. For example, spinal injections might be riskier than an ankle. Luckily, the risk goes down when Dr. Lewis uses ultrasound guidance. It allows her to see exactly where the needle is going. This is part of why she is so successful at using these injection therapies.
Prolotherapy
Prolotherapy is like PRP but less direct. In other words, it will attract the platelets and growth factors to the area, but the injection itself doesn’t contain those things. This is unlike PRP which has the platelets in the injection.
Prolotherapy is a combination of dextrose and anesthetic. These 2 things together act as a local irritant so your blood will bring the healing factors to the area.
These injections can improve joint stability, biomechanics, and function. All these things will decrease the pain associated with that area
Because prolotherapy is less direct than PRP, it is generally considered less potent than PRP. Both injections can achieve similar outcomes, but PRP tends to work quicker. Make sure you consult Dr. Lewis before booking so she can tell you which is best for you.
Neural Therapy
Lastly, neural therapy is most like prolotherapy but for nerves. Nerves get damaged by direct trauma, arthritis, sports injuries, overuse, and surgical injuries. The solution used is procaine or 5% dextrose. Both solutions act to re-set the nerves, allowing them to stop firing and causing pain. They call this ‘breaking the cycle of pain’.
In chronic pain patients, people’s pain is often in a vicious cycle of reproducing the pain even when the area is no longer injured. Neural therapy helps break this pain cycle. The solutions themselves will also repair any damage that is contributing to the pain cycle. This dual-action is the reason neural therapy has helped so many people!PRP therapy (aka platelet-rich plasma therapy.
Prolotherapy (aka proliferative therapy)
What Are The Injections Used For?
All too often people end up in this place of chronic pain with no way out. They get told their injury is not bad enough to be surgical, yet they aren’t responding to the traditional rehab. They get told to double down on pain medications and/or steroid injections and sent on their way. What most people don’t realize is, that there are other options! This is where ‘Regenerative Injection Therapies’ come in!
All 3 of these injections are different, but they all have a similar mechanism of action. They all stimulate your body to heal itself. If done correctly they can resolve someone’s pain PERMANENTLY!
“They stimulate your body to heal itself; Hence, they are able to achieve much longer lasting results”
Not sure which therapy is best for you? Book your complimentary discovery session today!
How Many Injections Will You Need?
- PRP: Most injuries will resolve within 1-3 injections. These injections are usually spaced 3 weeks apart from each other. Most people will see an average recovery of 80-100%.
- Prolotherapy: 3-8 injections are most often required for the majority of injuries. Most often the spacing between each injection is 2-6 weeks. This is to achieve an average recovery of 80-100%.
- Neural therapy: This therapy has a similar timeline to prolotherapy.
References
- Jain, N. K., & Gulati, M. (2016). Platelet-rich plasma: a healing virtuoso. Blood research, 51(1), 3.
- Rabago, D., Slattengren, A., & Zgierska, A. (2010). Prolotherapy in primary care practice. Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice, 37(1), 65-80.
- Hauser, R. A., Lackner, J. B., Steilen-Matias, D., & Harris, D. K. (2016). A systematic review of dextrose prolotherapy for chronic musculoskeletal pain. Clinical medicine insights: arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders, 9, CMAMD-S39160.
- Egli, S., Pfister, M., Ludin, S. M., de la Vega, K. P., Busato, A., & Fischer, L. (2015). Long-term results of therapeutic local anesthesia (neural therapy) in 280 referred refractory chronic pain patients. BMC complementary and alternative medicine, 15(1), 1-9.