Tendonitis Recovery: Understanding How PRP Works to Accelerate Healing

When you have tendonitis, you want one thing: your life back.

You just want things to be normal again. The pain, tenderness, stiffness, and swelling is making it hard to live your life.

At A+ Athlete Sports Medicine, Adam Redlich, MD, and our team can help you recover from your tendonitis faster than ever. Here’s how platelet rich plasma (PRP) works to accelerate your healing.

What is tendonitis?

Tendons are thick, fibrous cords that connect muscle to bone in your body. Tendonitis occurs when a tendon becomes inflamed or irritated due to repetitive motions, overuse, or a sudden injury. 

Symptoms include:

• Pain
• Tenderness
• Swelling
• Stiffness, bruising
• Decreased range of motion
• Reduced mobility

Common areas where tendonitis occurs in the body include your shoulder, elbow, wrist, knee, and heel.

What is PRP?

Platelet-rich plasma therapy is designed to take advantage of the power of your body’s own healing mechanisms. We’ll take a sample of your blood and spin it in a centrifuge to concentrate the platelets, which contain proteins called growth factors that enhance the healing process.

We then inject this platelet-rich mixture into the site of your injury, where it jump-starts the healing process. Healing doesn’t take as long as it normally would because of the higher concentrations of platelets that can take part in the process.

How does PRP treat tendonitis?

When the PRP mixture is injected into the injured area, it delivers a high concentration of growth factors to the tendon. The growth factors help the healing process by reducing the inflammation and pain in your tendon while promoting the growth of new, healthy cells that can repair or replace the old cells.

PRP helps in a couple of other ways as well. The blood supply of tendons is known to be low so PRP works to increase the blood flow, which brings needed oxygen and nutrients to the injured tendon so it can repair itself.

It can also enhance the production of collagen. Many tendons are composed primarily of collagen, so PRP helps the tendons build integrity and resilience.

PRP is a natural solution. The risk of allergies or adverse reactions is minimal since the platelets are already coming from your own body. The treatment can also give patients a faster recovery time as it accelerates the healing process. This gets you back on the field — or back to normal activities — as soon as possible. 

If you’d like to find out if PRP therapy would work for you, call our offices in Robbinsville or Neptune, New Jersey, to schedule an appointment, or use our online scheduler to book your own appointment anytime.