For Dan Dodson and Kyle Koontz, the answer is yes. These two Oklahoma City, as reported by Oklahoma City news KOCO station, lived with chronic pain.
Dodson couldn’t play ball with his son with out his rotator cuff giving him constant, severe pain. He couldn’t sleep at night and was worried about moving into the wrong position, which could increase the pain. His shoulder also popped when he moved and he couldn’t use it to pull himself up, like on a ladder.
This is pretty common when it comes to shoulder pain. Dodoson sought treatment and was given the option of surgery and also offered an option for PRP treatments. He went for the PRP treatments.
Dodson did understand that PRP treatment was experimental, but he felt like his choice was obvious. He went for the treatments and hasn’t regretted it. He no longer worries about chronic pain and can sleep at night.
For Kyle Koontz, who was taking cortisone shots and oral steroids, opted for the PRP therapy to treat his tennis elbow.
Do Stem Cells and PRP Therapy Give Positive Results?
Without a doubt, I’ve seen some positive results. There’s a fair amount of variability out there, but I think there can very much be positive results, and I would be optimistic about it.
We need more information as to really the best cell type, and that may vary for different anatomic areas. Do you treat a shoulder differently than you would an elbow? There are a lot of variables we don’t understand.
In the end, both stem cell and PRP treatments are being used frequently with great effectiveness. They’re safe but we do need to carefully study those patients in whom we use this and really look at what we’re putting into the patients so that we can truly understand what is effective, what is not, what parts are effective, to really start to have a more refined understanding of this whole area.