An All-Natural Approach to Chronic Lower Back Pain
Low back pain is a prevalent ailment that affects millions of people every year. While there are several effective treatments available for back pain, they don't always work for everyone.
PRP is a regenerative medicine that uses your body's cells to heal your spine from damage slowly. It's an effective treatment for chronic pain, especially back discomfort.
At the Regenerative Medical Group, our team is proud to offer PRP therapy for several conditions, including low back pain. Dr. Bryn J. Henderson is a highly experienced general practice doctor specializing in regenerative medicine treatments like PRP.
Causes of low back pain
When you have low back pain, your whole world is affected. You may need days off of work, and you're not always able to do things around the house like usual. Chronic pain affects your social life and makes it hard to do the simplest tasks.
Low back pain can be acute or chronic, depending on what's causing your pain. Some of the typical causes of low back pain include the following:
- Strains
- Sprains
- Spinal stenosis
- Herniated discs
- Spondylolisthesis
- Arthritis
- Fractures
- Degenerative disc disease
- Sciatica
When you come in for your appointment, you must tell our team if you've suffered an injury to your back or if you've had the pain and don't know why.
We use a physical exam of your back and imaging studies to determine the exact cause of your low back pain. Once we've figured out why you have pain, our team formulates a customized treatment plan to help you overcome it.
One of the treatments our team may suggest is PRP therapy, which is an all-natural treatment for chronic conditions like low back pain.
Understanding PRP
PRP, or platelet-rich plasma, is a state-of-the-art regenerative medicine treatment widely available to help heal injuries and chronic conditions like back pain.
Our team gets the PRP directly from your body with a simple blood draw. The vial of blood contains plasma, platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells. However, the only part we want is the platelets and plasma.
Your platelets are essential to this treatment because they contain potent growth proteins that help to rebuild and repair damaged tissues in your body. They rush to the scene when you have an injury and begin clotting your blood and rebuilding immediately.
To separate the plasma and platelets from the rest of your blood, we place the vial in a machine called a centrifuge. The centrifuge spins quickly to separate the liquid and platelets from the other cells.
During the centrifuge process, the platelets are more concentrated, allowing for more growth proteins. We then separate the plasma and platelets into a syringe, which our team injects into your spine where you're having pain.
How does PRP work for back pain?
When you have chronic low back pain from an injury or degenerative condition, many non-surgical treatments mask the problem. However, regenerative medicine treatments like PRP allow your body to heal from years of damage.
If you're suffering from low back pain, our team uses state-of-the-art diagnostic tools to determine the cause of your discomfort. We offer PRP therapy if you've tried other treatments like medications, physical therapy, or activity modifications without relief.
Our team uses PRP with a local anesthetic to numb the area during the injection. We also sometimes use corticosteroids along with the PRP injection to help inflammation in your spine.
Once we inject the PRP into your back, you'll notice immediate relief from the anesthetic medication. The PRP takes weeks to months to work, but the platelets are rebuilding your damaged discs and other tissues in your spine during this time.
The significant aspect of PRP is that it's derived from your blood and works to heal damage instead of mask the problem.
To learn more about how PRP can help your back pain, call our offices in California today. You can also request an appointment online.