PRP for hip labral tears

My plan to heal my labral tear involves several strategies working together.

The main idea is to stimulate my body to heal itself. I recently had a Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injection into the site of my labral tear. The basic idea behind this type of prolotherapy is to cause a type of inflammation and there increase blood flow to the labrum, a place that normally doesn't have much blood flow to it at all. What makes PRP different than regular prolotherapy is the platelets are growth factors so there is the double whammy of increasing blood flow and having growth factors available to stimulate new growth and tissue repair.

Now I will say this is all controversial and PRP ain't cheap. But as I wrote in my last post, so is the surgery and going back from that is impossible.

I had my first injection on Tuesday Jan 12th. They warned me that it would be very painful an hour after the injection and offered to write me a pain pill prescription. I laughed it off with a macho guffaw. I was wrong. It really really hurt. But with enough stubbornness, 4 extra strength Tylenol and a mid day powernap, I was able to make it through without the humiliation of having to call the Dr's office back and beg for mercy.

Over the next few days the pain was manageable but I was walking with a noticeable limp. They had warned me this would happen for up to a week.

Today is Monday so it's been six days and I still have some pain in the area.

From here it's a waiting game. Typically you'll know in 6 weeks whether the treatment is helping or not. I have an appointment 8 weeks out from my injection.

What I"m trying to be smart about is limiting my activities that could prevent healing. I spent a lot of money and a good chunk of pain on this, so I want to give it a real chance to work.

Even if it does work (or really if it doesn't too) I"m going to get a second shot in mid March.

My thought is best case scenario I'll have enough labral repair to be relatively pain free by mid spring and may need to get a maintenance PRP injection every year or so.

I'm going to keep track of my progress, along with my increase in posture exercises and see how all of this works.

If it doesn't, then I guess I'll start a blog on how the surgery goes ;)