How Athletes Can Recover Fast from Major Injuries

The idea behind injection therapy for athletes is that it's a way to speed recovery after major surgery with a minimally invasive procedure. The physician injects the patient at the site of the injury with a beneficial substance several times over the course of a few months. The different types of injection therapies work in different ways, but the beneficial substance speeds post-surgical healing. Injection therapies for non-athletes tend to utilize the therapy as a minimally invasive alternative to surgery.

Prolotherapy is a type of injection therapy that is also called "regenerative therapy". It involves injecting a natural non-pharmaceutical agent into an injured area of the body to help improve healing, increase strength, and decrease pain.

Prolotherapy New Jersey physicians like Dr. Hector Lopez, MD, are seeing more and more patients interested in prolotherapy NJ treatments after learning about its effectiveness in treating pro athletes. Prolotherapy injections utilize a sugar solution called dextrose which is slightly irritating to the body's tissues. Upon being exposed to dextrose at the site of injury, the body's immune system rushes helpful platelets to heal the injury. Many athletes report feeling better than they did before their injury.

Platelet-Rich Plasma Injection
Platelet-rich plasma (or PRP) injections require the athlete's doctor to extract a small amount of the patient's blood to produce a concentrated solution of the athlete's own blood platelets. These platelets are the substance in blood that helps the body regenerate tissue after an injury, and rushing them to the afflicted area in high doses helps boost recovery. This procedure is often confused with blood doping or the use of human growth hormone and is sometimes controversial in the athletic world.

Non-Embryonic Adult Stem Cell Therapy
Non-embryonic adult stem cell therapy is another popular solution. This treatment utilizes adult stem cells, which can form themselves into any tissue of the body, drawn from the patient's bone marrow or fat tissue. These stem cells are not controversial embryonic stem cells, and applying them to the injured area helps the body regenerate tissue within months. Injection therapies used by athletes are available to ordinary active citizens as well and are often covered by insurance. Discussing treatment options with a doctor can often save a patient a painful surgery as well as a long recovery.