A painful injury or condition affecting your feet or ankles can make it challenging to get through the day. You can’t travel, play sports, or have fun with your family in the same way when your pain is too high. However, there may be hope even for patients facing some of the most complex medical cases.
Legendary athlete Tiger Woods turned to regenerative medicine – specifically platelet-rich plasma (PRP) – when he blew out his ACL and injured his Achilles tendon. “I did everything I possibly could to heal faster so I could get back on the golf course,” he said, “through the PRP injections.”
“I did everything I possibly could to help heal faster.”
TIGER WOODS, 2010 MASTERS PRESS RELEASE
2 YEARS AFTER RECEIVING PRP TREATMENT
What causes foot & ankle pain?
A fun game of soccer or football can quickly take a turn for the worse with a misplaced step or hard impact, but auto accidents, wet floors, and many other incidents can twist your ankle and leave you in pain. Since we rely on our legs for so many activities, most people face situations that could injure them almost every day.
Because damage to tendons, ligaments, muscles, and bones can cause significant pain, these injuries can be exceptionally debilitating in these commonly used body parts.
When an injury leaves you in pain or with limited movement, regenerative medicine like cell therapy and PRP might help.
How to treat foot & ankle pain
It all depends on the injury. Cold and hot compresses used as your doctor directs for minor injuries help reduce inflammation. Taking downtime to rest could aid recovery and offer some relief since you won’t be putting further strain on your injury. These are traditional home remedies, but they are only sometimes enough.
You may need significant downtime for more complex or painful injuries to heal appropriately. In these cases, regenerative medicine may provide a faster or more complete recovery. Through a same-day medical procedure with little downtime, it could help your body regenerate and restore damaged cells.
What is regenerative medicine?
Regenerative medicine is a cutting-edge medical procedure that uses cellular therapies to try and trigger your body’s healing processes at an accelerated rate. Depending on the type, regenerative medicine can repair and regenerate bone, muscle, ligaments, tendons, skin, and other cells, making it useful for various sports injuries, medical conditions, and diseases.
Regenerative medicine treatments have even made headlines for helping some paraplegic patients move their upper arms, treating blood cancers like leukemia, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and even clearing two patients of cancer.
Compared to options like surgery, alternative cell therapy can have much lower costs. Since the procedure has minimal downtime, most patients can return to work the following day without sacrificing their pay. That can make regenerative cell therapy, or PRP, especially attractive for athletes and busy professionals.
What is stem cell therapy?
Regenerative cell therapy uses cells from your own body or a more youthful source to stimulate your body’s regenerative capabilities to help you heal faster. These cells can become many types of cells, and our body naturally uses them to regenerate us but runs shorter in supply as we age. It is part of why we recover more slowly as we age, while children bounce back quickly from injuries.
Once activated, these cells could repair, regenerate, and renew cells at the site of your injury. These new cells could speed up your recovery substantially. Another option is PRP, explained below.
What is PRP?
Your blood’s platelet concentrations are used in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to stimulate healing, mimicking your body’s natural response to a cut or wound. You can utilize PRP with stem cell therapy to enhance your recovery or independently for minor injuries.
How could regenerative medicine help my foot or ankle heal faster?
With a foot or ankle injury, you may look at many downtimes to allow it to heal. Still, regenerative medicine can regenerate damaged tissues, activate a healing cascade of cells, and stimulate your body’s natural regeneration. It can lessen inflammation and pain, increase range of motion, and accelerate a patient’s recovery.
This process can even have benefits beyond the affected area, allowing you to get back on your feet faster and return to work, play, and the things you love more quickly than you otherwise might have.
Since regenerative medicine affects everyone differently, you should consult your clinic to determine if your situation makes you a viable candidate. For more details about your unique situation or to get answers to your questions, contact a dedicated regenerative medicine clinic with board-certified clinicians.
