If you are dealing with an injury or other musculoskeletal condition, your doctor might have talked to you about regenerative medicine treatments, which are specialized therapies that power up your body’s ability to heal itself. Both platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and stem cell therapy are forms of regenerative medicine. How do these two treatments compare to one another, and which one might be better for your unique situation? This blog post provides some helpful information.
What Are They?
During PRP therapy, your medical team draws a small amount of your blood and places it in a centrifuge. This separates the platelet-rich portion of your blood from the rest of it. The PRP is then injected back into your body at the site of damaged tissues, where it delivers important healing factors that can encourage your body to recover and/or slow down the progression of certain musculoskeletal diseases.
Stem cell therapy, on the other hand, requires that your medical team harvests cells from your bone marrow or fatty areas. These tissues containing stem cells are unique because they act as messengers within the body. Once they are processed and injected at the site of damaged tissues, they can encourage recovery and healing.
How Do They Compare?
Both PRP and stem cell therapy are drug-free, nonsurgical, minimally invasive approaches to musculoskeletal care. They are also autologous, meaning that they use tissues from your own body, so there is virtually no risk of rejection or an allergic reaction. Both can be very effective.
Stem cell therapy is more involved than PRP treatment because it is more challenging to harvest mesenchymal stemcells than it is to simply draw some blood and place it in a centrifuge. Additionally, it has not been studied as extensively as PRP for some musculoskeletal conditions.
Is One Better than the Other?
Neither stem cell therapy nor PRP is necessarily the “better” treatment. Both are remarkable forms of regenerative medicine that have the potential to relieve pain, repair tissues, and get you back to feeling your best. In some cases, these two therapies can be used together to produce optimum results.
When you visit your regenerative medicine doctor for a consultation, they can help you understand the pros, cons, and cost of all of your treatment options so you can make a well-informed decision about how to move forward.
Meet the Doctor
Dr. James Pinkston is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine who is board-certified in Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine. He offers a number of regenerative medicine treatments, including both PRP and stem cell therapy. He has helped patients find relief from a range of conditions, including osteoarthritis, back pain, neck pain, and more. If you are curious about how he and our team may be able to serve you, contact Asheville Non-Surgical Orthopedics at 828-417-9913.