Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) involves aspirating blood from the patient’s vein, spinning it to concentrate the platelets, and activating the platelets to release their growth factors at a site of injury. PRP has gained popularity due to the fact it is an all-natural procedure concentrating the patient’s own growth factors to provide a boost to a healing site.

In the shoulder, PRP has proven beneficial to speed healing of chronic inflammation and to aid in the repair of a torn rotator cuff and/or labrum as well as to help diminish tendonitis in each of the tissues. Indications for PRP are fracture, tendonitis, or inflammation that has not been responding to physical therapy and argumentation of healing for tissues that are sometimes difficult to heal, such as a torn rotator cuff.

The procedure is performed by drawing blood from the vein, spinning it in a centrifuge, concentrating and activating the platelets, and then injecting the result directly back into the patient. The technique can be performed once or multiple times depending on the patient’s response to the intervention. 

Recovery after PRP is relatively rapid, as minimal mobilization is required. 

Shoulder PRP at The Stone Clinic
Why we are different: We starting using blood as a stimulant for tissue repair over 10 years ago and fibrin clots over 20 years ago. We have optimized the rehabilitation program to match with each tissue injury and can supervise the progress here in our clinic with our rehabilitation team. Recently we have improvements to the PRP injections by combining them with HA (viscosupplementation) injections when indicated. This combination has been particularly useful in painful arthritic joints and tissue tendonitis.