Beautiful Lady

    Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy (PRP) is a relatively new form of treatment of Tendonitis and Tendon injury. Can it possibly help baseball pitchers be able to throw more, injury free? Can it possibly help the average joe with shoulder tendonitis?Why would PRP be good for a damaged Tendon? The answer lies in the structure of a tendon, and how it gets the nutrients that it needs to be and stay healthy.Muscle has a plentiful and direct blood supply. Unfortunately, tendons and ligaments have no direct blood supply. Like joints, they get their blood/nutrition from movement and just being close to tissue with direct blood supply.So it makes sense that when one has Tendonitis and/or a torn tendon, that it would take longer to heal than muscle tissue, or at least be harder to heal, since blood carries vital nutrients and building blocks or protein, and the damaged tendon doesn't have direct access to new blood. So tendon essentially gets less blood flow than is optimal.

    New plasma given directly to a tendon -could- give it the nutrient boost it is starving for, and greatly enhance the speed with which a tendon cold heal itself. It's an interesting concept which has a lot of potential.But it makes sense. Corticosteroid Shots don't make sense.

    If Platelet Rich Platelet Therapy can be shown to help tendon injury heal faster than the default rate, then it's a good thing. At this point though it's still really expensive. Which explains why only professional athletes are getting the treatment.

    But there are a couple of downsides...  

    First issue is, damage to the tendon if the needle actually penetrates it. Tendons don't like damage. It remains to be seen if getting punctured with PRP will help it heal fast enough to not be an issue.

    Second issue is, and this is more of a major issue, is that while PRP may help the tendon damage itself heal fast, it doesn't deal with The Pain Causing Dynamic, or the pattern that has been developing that has led to the Tendonitis.

    This may be less of a problem with Tendon tears from heavy impacts, as those are caused by sudden tearing forces as opposed to the long progressive patter on tendonitis issues like Tennis Elbow and Wrist Tendonitis and Shoulder Tendonitis...But even then, much of the time, tendons are set up for injury by the Downward Spiral of tightness that has been developing over time...and then a 'normal' impact causes a tear in a tendon that has been trying to hold off the damage for a good deal of time.

    Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy may evolve into a viable, readily available treatment. Let's keep an eye on it and see what happens.