Chronic musculoskeletal pain can be debilitating, and it can diminish your quality of life. Cutting-edge regenerative medicine techniques, like PRP and stem cell therapy, can promote healing and provide relief from your chronic pain. Dr. Dawn Sparks at Lighthouse Healing in Lihue, Hawaii and Kauai, Hawaii is an expert in regenerative medicine, and she can help you to get back to the life you love. Call or request an appointment online today.
What is regenerative medicine?
Regenerative medicine harnesses your body’s own ability to heal itself. Recovering from a musculoskeletal injury can take weeks or even months. Even for a very healthy person, the body cannot always recover fully from certain ligament, tendon, or joint injuries, or some chronic conditions.
Regenerative medicine focuses on treatments that promote the growth, regeneration, mending, and renewal of damaged soft tissues, such as nerves and tendons.
Two of the most exciting advances in the field of regenerative medicine are platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and stem cell therapy. These treatments accelerate healing and allow you to recover from many musculoskeletal injuries.
What are PRP and stem cell therapy?
Dr. Sparks uses PRP injections and stem cell therapy to promote the repair of tendons, ligaments, and joints.
While they are two distinct treatment techniques, Dr. Sparks often uses them in tandem to compound their healing power. Both PRP and stem cell therapy use your body’s healing properties to accelerate recovery after an injury.
How does a PRP injection work?
PRP harnesses the growth factors in your blood to promote healing. Dr. Sparks withdraws a sample of your blood and places it in a centrifuge to separate out the platelets, which contain the growth factor proteins.
The platelets are recombined with your blood plasma then re-injected into the inflamed or painful area, accelerating your body’s natural healing and speeding up your recovery.
How does stem cell therapy work?
Stem cell therapy is a unique and separate process of extracting rejuvenating cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated and can develop into a variety of different cell types. When injected into an injured area, they differentiate into the kind of cell needed to heal your injury properly.
To perform the procedure, Dr. Sparks typically harvests the stem cells from either your fat tissue or bone marrow. Stem cells from bone marrow are most often used for sports injuries and arthritis. Stem cells from fat tissue are used in conjunction with platelets to heal joints and regrow cartilage.
If you’re interested in regenerative medicine, call or request an appointment online with Dr. Sparks today.