PRP treatment is one of the most exciting advances in regenerative medicine. At Advanced Regenerative Therapy in Braselton, GA, we offer this treatment as a way to heal difficult areas of the body, like muscles and joints, without surgery or downtime. We can also use PRP to address hair loss, improve male and female sexual health, and more.
How Long Does PRP Treatment Take to Work?
The amount of time it takes for this therapy to make a difference will depend on your body’s own healing capacities as well as the extent of your issue. Your age has something to do with it, too. PRP supercharges your natural healing abilities, but someone else who is naturally a faster healer than you are would still see speedier results from the same PRP treatment, all other things being equal.
Injuries and Arthritis
When PRP is used on soft tissues, muscles, or arthritic joints, it usually works more quickly than on tendons. Your symptoms should start to improve between one and three months after your first therapy session. If you’re not seeing a significant difference at the three-month mark, we will typically recommend a second injection, which usually resolves the issue for most people.
These results should continue to improve for six to nine months until you are fully healed (if your pain is the result of a strain or injury). Healing will be complete and permanent. If you’re suffering from arthritis pain, you may need occasional treatments to keep up your results. Treatments can restore your joints to healthy function and relieve pain for long periods, but they cannot actually stop conditions like osteoarthritis.
Health and Wellness
PRP is a powerful treatment for sexual health, hair restoration, facial rejuvenation, and more. It can help the body restore itself, and it takes just a few weeks to see a major difference. Some people will notice changes within the first week, but for most people, significant changes come at the three- to four-week mark.
Those will continue to improve until peak results hit at about three months. A second or even third treatment is possible if necessary, but many people get results from just one. These results tend to last about a year and then gradually fade as the body’s natural aging process continues. You can keep up your results with occasional maintenance treatments, and when you come to see us we can design a personalized treatment plan that will address your needs.
What Is PRP Therapy?
This therapy uses your own blood to heal you, and it starts with a simple blood draw. The blood is put in a centrifuge, which separates the various components of your blood based on molecular weight. We then take the concentrated platelets and inject them into the area of the body where you need treatment.
Our bodies have many natural agents capable of repairing damaged tissues, but some tissues are difficult for those agents to reach. Joints and ligaments, for example, do not have nearly as many blood vessels as muscle. Since healing agents use the circulatory system to get around, it takes them longer to reach and heal a joint than a muscle rich in blood vessels.
By injected concentrated platelets into areas where healing is needed, we’re focusing the attention of your body’s healing agents. PRP calls to the body to send an army of healers and then facilitates communication among the various cells involved in that process. PRP treatment is being successfully used worldwide to treat athletic injuries, restore hair, improve sexual function, reverse joint damage, and more.
The Science Behind PRP
Blood plasma is the liquid portion of our blood, and it carries red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets throughout the body. Red blood cells deliver nutrients and oxygen to the tissues while white blood cells fight infection. The platelets, meanwhile, respond whenever they sense an injury.
Clotting
The first job of the platelets is to clot damaged blood vessels in order to minimize damage. This clotting then lays a foundation for new tissues to build on.
Healing Factors
As the injury clots, the platelets send out chemical signals that call even more platelets to the area. The platelets pile onto one another in a process known as aggregation. At these aggregations, new tissue begins to grow. There are more than 30 agents of growth, but three stand out:
Platelet-Derived Growth Factor
This growth factor’s job is to cause blood vessels to regenerate. This builds the very network that delivers nutrients to all the other tissues.
Fibroblast Growth Factor
This is a specific wound-healing growth factor. One of its primary jobs is to encourage stem cells to differentiate and then develop into all the different types of tissues necessary to finish the healing process.
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor
This growth factor specifically generates muscle tissues. It’s also capable of bypassing blocked blood vessels.
The Use of PRP in Medicine
PRP therapy was developed back in the 70s, and by the late 80s, it was being used regularly in open-heart surgeries, where it sped up healing. Then, surgeons began using it in surgeries of the mouth and jaw, where quick healing is important but elusive.
The next step was to use PRP in any wounds that required a reconstructive skin flap. The PRP helped the body more effectively repair the wound and regenerate new skin. In 1999 and 2000, an orthopedic surgeon finally began using PRP as part of treatment for an injured professional football player.
The player had a torn Achilles tendon: a devastating injury that at the time often made it impossible for a professional player to return to the field. The healing and regenerative results of PRP therapy for tendon and joint injuries in the sports world were dramatic, and PRP therapy is now a standard in sports medicine.
Beyond Sports Medicine
Over time, it has become clear that PRP is capable of regenerating all kinds of tissues, which means doctors and scientists are constantly exploring new uses for it. If it could be used to restore damaged tissues, for example, could it not also be used to regenerate worn-out tissues? Today, PRP therapy is a major player in regenerative medicine.
Applications for PRP
PRP is such an amazing breakthrough because it doesn’t involve anything invasive, nor does it introduce dangerous chemicals or medications with side effects into the body. It just spurs on the body’s own restoration powers.
It’s completely safe to use because the material comes from your own body. Thus it’s not possible for you to have an allergic reaction, and as long as you seek your injections from trained professionals at Advanced Regenerative Therapy, you can rest assured that there’s no risk of infection from an unsafe environment.
Perhaps best of all, the results of therapy last for significant periods of time, if not permanently. Here are just a few of the areas where we use PRP:
Facial Rejuvenation
As we age, it’s natural to see sagging skin, wrinkles, and an overall duller look to our faces. PRP can reverse that by stimulating the growth of new collagen when combined with microneedling. This tightens the skin, smooths out wrinkles, and restores volume.
Microneedling creates micro-wounds in the skin, which aren’t enough to hurt you but are just enough to signal to your body to rush healing agents to the face. When PRP is applied along with the microneedling, the platelets supercharge this process, causing faster and better results. This is a great treatment for addressing:
- Uneven pigmentation
- Hyperpigmentation
- Age spots
- Enlarged pores
- Stretch marks
- Lines and wrinkles
- Skin laxity
- Uneven complexion
Women’s Health
PRP can rejuvenate blood vessels and stimulate the vaginal area to generate new tissues. Results you can expect include:
- Improved orgasms
- Greater sensitivity
- Tighter vaginal tissues
- Less discomfort during sex
- Better vaginal lubrication
- Fewer issues with urinary stress incontinence
This is a simple treatment that requires no downtime and involves no invasive procedures.
PRP for Male Sexuality
PRP can do as much for men as for women. For men, ED and poor erections are often the results of poor blood flow and plaque buildup over time. PRP repairs penile tissue, generating new blood vessels for better stamina, increased sensation, stronger orgasms, and sometimes even enhanced size.
PRP for Hair Restoration
Thinning hair and pattern balding has been hard for both men and women for centuries, and few good answers exist for improving the situation. Painful transplants don’t always work, and pills come with serious side effects: plus hair loss returns as soon as you stop taking the medications. PRP can stimulate dormant hair follicles to go back into the active growing stage, effectively treating male and female pattern baldness.
Am I a Candidate for PRP?
When you hear about everything that PRP can do, it’s natural to be excited! The good news is that most men or women who are interested in PRP are good candidates for it. Since the therapy comes from your own blood, there are very few contraindications.
Consultation
Your first step is to come to see us for a consultation. Whether you’re interested in PRP for joint pain relief, hair restoration, sexual wellness, or anything else, we’ll ensure you’re a good candidate and design a treatment plan that’s right for you.
The only things that might keep you from getting a PRP treatment are a history of blood cancer, possible infections in the target areas, pregnancy, a recent fever or illness, or if you are on anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy. With most of these, you can still have PRP therapy once the issue or condition has passed. With certain medications, it may be possible for you to pause them for a while in order to receive therapy.
Preparing for PRP
There are no elaborate instructions for PRP preparation. It’s a good idea to avoid blood-thinning medications for a week before treatment. Also, the more hydrated you are and the better the nutrition you ingest during that week, the higher the quality of your platelets and plasma will be.
Post-Injection
Again, there is no laundry list of instructions to follow, and there is no need to take time off from work or make significant changes to your schedule. Avoid anti-inflammatories for a few weeks after your therapy, stay hydrated, and avoiding smoking and drinking for at least a week to get the best results.
How to Get Started
Are you ready to get started? If you’re concerned with the signs of aging, have an injury to a joint or are suffering daily aches and pains from arthritis, if you no longer enjoy sex as you once did, or if you’re suffering from male or female pattern baldness, PRP is an exciting treatment that can make a big difference.
Reach out to us at Advanced Regenerative Therapy in Braselton, GA today to get started. We can’t wait to help you find out everything that PRP treatment can do for you.