Welcome to Harris Method Pain Treatment

What is PRP? (Platelet Rich Plasma)

What is PRP? PRP stands for Platelet Rich Plasma. The platelets are the component in the blood that is principally responsible for healing of injuries. Essentially, the platelets are little packages that contain a mixture of different growth factors that float around in the blood. The way it is supposed to work is that when the blood flows through an injury site, the inflammatory chemicals given off by that injury site trigger the platelets to release the growth factors and that is what initiates the healing process.

There are a couple of problems though with using the platelets in treatment. First off, the main area of damage in chronic musculoskeletal pain is in the connective tissue structures, such as, ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and the sheets of connective tissue between the bones, called fascia. The connective tissue is tough and difficult to damage, but when it does get damaged it is slow to heal. The primary reason the connective tissue is slow to heal is because it has a poor blood supply. If you look at anatomical illustrations of the musculoskeletal system you will usually see the muscles depicted as red and the ligaments and tendons as white, and this is the way it looks in reality. The reason being that the muscles are richly supplied with blood flow. That is why you seldom need to do anything to assist in their healing, but the connective tissues have a poor blood supply. That is why they are so pale. So, the first problem then is that you don't get much blood in the connective tissue to begin with.

The second problem is that the platelets are fairly diluted in the blood. They make up less than 5% of the blood volume, so what little blood gets into the connective tissues doesn't have very many platelets in it. That is also why it doesn't work very well to inject whole blood directly into the injury site. There aren't enough platelets in it, and, the iron that is in the hemoglobin of the red blood cells actually seems to interfere with healing. So, instead of whole blood, we draw the blood out of the patient and put it into a machine that separates the platelets from the rest of the blood, and then concentrates them. We then inject the purified and concentrated platelets into the damaged ligaments, tendons and other connective tissue structures. The platelets then do what they are supposed to do. They begin to release large quantities of growth factors which in turn cause the torn fibers of the connective tissue to reattach back to the bone, and to lay down new fibers so that it gets even thicker and stronger than before.

This same principle can be utilized for cosmetic purposes as well. Wrinkled, sagging skin is primarily due to loss of the integrity of the collagen in the skin. PRP injection into the collagen of the skin thickens and tightens it in the same manner that it does the ligaments and tendons and restores a more youthful appearance. This effect can be significantly enhanced if the PRP therapy is combined with laser treatment of the skin at the same time. Our office offers both of these options.

So what applications is PRP treatment good for? As previously mentioned, it is good for many different musculoskeletal pain problems, such as: PRP for shoulder pain, PRP for neck pain, PRP for back pain, PRP for neck pain, PRP for knee pain, PRP for hip pain, PRP for ankle pain, PRP for wrist pain, etc. Essentially, any musculoskeletal pain problem anywhere in the body is a potential candidate for PRP injections for treatment. PRP also has multiple cosmetics applications. It can be used for PRP facelift, PRP facials, in which it is applied via microneedling with PRP, PRP for hair loss, or PRP hair restoration, and others. Other applications include: PRP for erectile dysfunction, and PRP for urinary incontinence in females.

What is Neural Therapy?

Neural Therapy is a system of treatment for chronic pain. It involves the injection of local anesthetics into scars, autonomic ganglia (clusters of nerves), trigger points, acupuncture points, sites of trauma, glands and other tissues. It is thought to work through normalization of function of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is that part of our nervous system that controls things in our body we do not think about (automatic) acting as a control system largely below our level of awareness.

History of Neural Therapy: The beginnings of this therapy were in the early 1900's when Dr. G. Spiess discovered that procaine (a local anesthetic) could greatly improve wound healing. In 1926 Dr. Huneke inadvertently gave a patient an intravenous infusion of procaine and resolved her migrane headaches which had previously been resistant to treatment. In 1940, an injection of the scar on a patient's leg amazingly immediately resolved that patient's painful shoulder. While not all reactions are this dramatic, it was these incidents that formed the foundation of further research and development of the art and science of Neural Therapy treatment today.

What is Prolotherapy?

Prolotherapy is also known as nonsurgical ligament and tendon reconstruction or regenerative injection therapy, and is a treatment for chronic pain. It was originally called musculoskeletal sclerotherapy.

Prolotherapy is helpful for what conditions?
The treatment is useful for many different types of musculoskeletal pain, including arthritis, back pain, knee pain, foot or ankle pain, neck pain, sports injuries, unresolved whiplash injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, chronic tendonitis, partially torn tendons, ligaments and cartilage, degenerated or herniated discs, TMJ and sciatica.

 What is prolotherapy?
First, it is important to understand what the word prolotherapy itself means. "Prolo" is short for proliferation, because the treatment causes the proliferation (growth, formation) of new ligament tissue in areas where it has become weak.

Ligaments are the structural "rubber bands" that hold bones to bones in joints. Ligaments can become weak or injured and may not heal back to their original strength or endurance. This is largely because the blood supply to ligaments is limited, and therefore healing is slow and not always complete. To further complicate this, ligaments also have many nerve endings and therefore the person will feel pain at the areas where the ligaments are damaged or loose.

Tendons are the name given to tissue which connects muscles to bones, and in the same manner tendons may also become injured, and cause pain.

Prolotherapy uses a dextrose (sugar water) solution, which is injected into the ligament or tendon where it attaches to the bone. This causes a localized inflammation in these weak areas which then increases the blood supply and flow of nutrients and stimulates the tissue to repair itself.

Historical review shows that a version of this technique was first used by Hippocrates on soldiers with dislocated, torn shoulder joints. He would stick a hot poker into the joint, and it would then miraculously heal normally. Of course, we don't use hot pokers today, but the principle is similar — get the body to repair itself, an innate ability that the body has.

Adult Stem Cell Treatment

ADULT STEM CELLS are found in a variety of tissues in the body. The type of stem cells that are particularly useful in the treatment of musculo-skeletal injuries are called mesenchymal stem cells. These progenitor cells ( cells that have the ability to form into the type of cells surrounding them ) are found in several different tissues, but are most abundant in bone marrow and adipose ( fat ) tissue, especially fat.

It is estimated that there are approximately 500-1000 times as many adult mesenchymal stem cells in fat as there are in bone marrow. These progenitor cells have the ability to form bone, muscle, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. These are the primary tissues of interest in the treatment of musculo-skeletal pain disorders. The adipose stem cells are obtained by performing a mini liposuction procedure in which 25 – 50cc of fat is removed from the patient, and then the fat is passed through a filter and centrifuged to remove excess water. This homogeneous fat is then mixed with platelet rich plasma that is derived from the same donor’s blood to provide growth factors for the progenitor cells contained within the fat and to form a gel matrix for the growth of the progenitor cells. This mixture of autologous fat graft and platelet rich plasma is then injected, usually under ultrasound guidance, into the damaged musculo-skeletal structures and acts to regenerate and heal them.

It should be understood that these are adult progenitor cells ( stem cells ) and not fetal stem cells. They are obtained from the patient, and put back into the same patient, on the same day during the same procedure and not modified, isolated, or manipulated, and is in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulation part 1271 where as no tissue is transferred to another patient or stored for future procedures. As this is an emerging new field of medicine, adult stem cell therapy has been approved for the start of early clinical trials though currently does not have FDA approval, however, other cellular therapies have been recently approved.

This procedure is preformed in the office and surgical anesthesia is not necessary, so the patient is usually able to return home immediately after the procedure is finished with minimal post procedural pain.