Healing from a Shoulder Fracture: What to Expect
Depending on the severity of your injury, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months to fully rehabilitate a shoulder fracture. Here’s what to expect.
Get Your Body Healing Faster with PRP
When you injure yourself, certain systems in your body spring into action to start the healing process. But recovery can take time, and meanwhile you’ll be in pain and suffering from limited mobility. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a way to boost your body’s healing abilities and speed up the process?
Well, there is. Orthopedic specialist Dr. Philip Regala in Naples, Florida uses innovative supplemental treatments like platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy to help aid healing and provide additional relief from pain.
The stages of healing
To understand how PRP works, it’s helpful to understand the four stages of healing.
1. Clotting
Stopping bleeding is the first step to healing an injury. If there is a break in the skin, bleeding is very visible. Pressure applied to the wound can help staunch the bleeding and give it a chance to clot. Bleeding under the skin forms a bruise, which can also be reduced with pressure and cold.
2. Cleaning
Next, your body starts to try and clean the affected area, which is when you’ll often see a clear yellow-tinted serum forming. This can help flush the injury and create a scab on an open wound. Internally, it causes swelling in the affected area, and blood vessels open wider to bring in more blood. White blood cells arrive, and with them, growth factors.
3. Growth
The oxygen-rich blood cells that have been funneled to the site of the injury stimulate cellular renewal, with the growth factors aiding in the process. They boost the body’s manufacture of collagen, which is a structural building block that helps repair the area.
4. Maturation
Finally, even though the injury may appear to be healed, the body continues to reinforce internal structures on a cellular level, strengthening the area even more.
How PRP speeds healing
PRP is made from your own blood, which is extracted from your arm and then centrifuged to concentrate the platelets, which are rich in growth factors. The platelet-rich plasma is injected into the site of the injury (often a joint) and boosts the healing process for faster recovery. PRP has been found useful for both acute injuries and for those with chronic arthritis pain stemming from old or repetitive use injuries.
Dr. Regala can provide PRP therapy for a wide range of orthopedic injuries and conditions, using the Arthrex ACP® Double Syringe System. It only takes about 20 minutes to complete both the PRP preparation and the injection, and then you’ll be on your way.
Do you have an injury that could benefit from a boost of PRP? Contact our office at 239-325-1131, or book a consultation with Dr. Regala today using our convenient online scheduling tool.
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