There’s nothing quite like a foot or ankle injury to disrupt your life. When even walking the dog around the block or going to the grocery store becomes an issue, it’s one that you want resolved as quickly as possible.
Whether you’re among the 2 million Americans who develop acute ankle sprains, the 1 million Americans who seek help for plantar fasciitis each year, or you have another lower limb injury, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections can play a key role in your rehabilitation.
At Aesthetic Podiatry & Sports Medicine Center, our team of foot health experts, which is headed up by Dr. Mariola Rivera and Dr. Lisa Shah, takes pride in providing our patients with the most cutting-edge, science-based therapies available, including regenerative medicine treatments like PRP injections.
If you want to see how PRP injections can support your recovery from a foot or ankle injury, read on.
There’s a lot of buzz in the medical world about regenerative medicine, for good reason. This is an exciting branch of medicine that focuses on regenerating and rebuilding damaged tissues and organs using the human body’s powerful resources.
Think about it this way: When you cut your finger, your body jumps into action to stop the bleeding and heal the wound to keep your skin barrier intact. And it does so quickly.
Our goal with regenerative medicine is to tap into this regenerative and healing response and redirect it, which is what we accomplish with PRP therapy.
As the name suggests, PRP therapy is a technique that relies on platelets, which we harvest from your own blood. We then take those platelets and inject them into damaged tissues to support healing.
The reason we turn to platelets is because they set the stage for healing. In the healing cascade, your platelets are first responders that control bleeding. Once stasis is achieved, these cells then release growth factors and cytokines that help rebuild the damaged tissues and control inflammation (and pain).
Our goal with PRP injections is to speed up the healing of your foot or ankle injury, at the same time as we control inflammation and pain.
To give you an idea about the efficacy of PRP injections for foot and ankle injuries, one study on the use of PRP for chronic plantar fasciitis concludes that PRP injections were successful in achieving clinically and statistically substantial improvements in:
And further studies show the same impressive results for other common foot and ankle issues, such as sprained ankles and Achilles tendinopathies.
The other benefit of PRP therapy for foot and ankle injuries is that it’s a low-risk treatment since we’re using your body’s own resources.
When you come in for your PRP injections, we first draw a sample of your own blood and then use a centrifuge to isolate the platelets. Next, we prepare the platelets and inject them into the damaged tissues in your foot or ankle.
After your first round of injections, there’s no downtime, but we will likely recommend that you continue to take it easy on your feet to give space and time for everything to heal.
In most cases, we recommend a series of PRP injections, which we space apart to allow time for your body to heal between injections.
As we progress through your PRP injections, you should notice gradual improvement, both in function and pain.
It’s tricky for us to give you more detail, as the outcomes and length of treatment depend on the extent of the injury. Rest assured, we’re with you every step of the way, working toward your goal of pain-free mobility.
If you have more questions about PRP injections, please don’t hesitate to contact us online or by phone at one of our offices in Purchase or White Plains, New York, to schedule an appointment.
