For years, if you suffered a sports injury such as a torn ACL or rotator cuff, your sports medicine doctor would refer you to an orthopedic surgeon. Indeed, surgery is an excellent option for treating these types of injuries, but it does have some pretty big downsides, too. For one, it's painful. The recovery time can also be quite long. For these reasons, most injured athletes would prefer a non-surgical approach if one is available. In recent years, there have been a few non-surgical treatments that have become more common and may be a good alternative to surgery for your sports injury.

Plasma-Rich Protein Therapy

Known as PRP for short, this treatment involves removing some of the patient's blood and spinning it down to isolate the plasma. Then, the plasma is injected into the injured tissue. The injections can be a bit painful, but many doctors will administer a local anesthetic to dull or numb the pain.

PRP is really helpful for healing tendon and ligament tears and strains, such as torn ACLs, strained rotator cuffs, and strained Achilles tendons. These tissues do not have a lot of natural blood supply, which is why they heal slowly. But the PRP contains the nutrients and oxygen they need to heal. Some patients only need one treatment, and some need two or three treatments. Often PRP is combined with physical therapy for a full recovery.

Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which means they have not yet turned into a certain type of cell and have the ability to turn into almost any type of cell in your body. You have stem cells in your bone marrow. Your doctor can extract some of them, usually either from your hip or from your shoulder. Then, these stem cells can be injected into the injured tissue. They will turn into the type of tissue they were injected into and help that tissue to heal. So, for example, if stem cells are injected into a torn tendon, they will turn into tendon cells and help your tendon heal.

It will still take you a few months of rest and physical therapy to heal after a stem cell treatment. However, most patients do only need one treatment.

If you've been diagnosed with a sports injury, look into the treatments above before you resort to surgery. Both options are far less invasive than surgery and come with fewer risks. Contact a medical office, such as Town Center Orthopaedic Associates, P.C., to make an appointment.