Regenerative therapies for hip pain offer newer and better treatment options for patients. Hip pain can represent multiple different problems. It can represent hip joint arthritis, soft tissue injury related to the hip, tendinitis of the posterior hip, sacroiliac joint dysfunction, lower back arthritis, pinched nerve in the back, or a combination of any of the above issues. With that said, it takes a thorough history, good examination skills, and imaging to specifically diagnose the origin of hip pain.
PRP has the potential to help hip pain treatment in a number of ways. Within the joint, arthritis and labral tears can benefit from PRP. For mild to moderate osteoarthritis of the hip, PRP can help reduce pain and possibly prevent progression of arthritis if there has been a recent injury to the hip joint. You should be mindful that when treating a joint with PRP, using PRP with minimal red blood cells is important to avoid releasing too many catabolic proteins that have the potential to damage the joint.
Also within the hip joint, if you have a labral tear, using a very high dose of PRP (at least 10x your normal concentration) may help heal a torn labrum. The important key here is to use the correct concentration of PRP. Too low of a concentration may not be strong enough to heal a labral tear.
Posterior hip tendinopathy is another common source of hip pain. In this case tendinitis affecting the muscles/tendons that rotate the hip are the source of pain. Using a moderately concentrated PRP soluion to treat a chronically iriatated tendon can help relieve this sort of pain. Also in the back of the hip treating sacroiliac joint dysfunction with PRP can be beneficial. Lastly, the newer concept of using Platelet Lysate, a variant of PRP, for epidurals may also be beneficial in treating lower back/buttock/posterior hip pain.
PRP has enabled physicians to make a big jump in treating various arthritis, tendinitis, and ligament injuries. Hip pain is a complicated topic but may also be amenable to regenerative treatments.
Siddharth Tambar, MD is a physician in Chicago utilizing regenerative medicine techniques such as Platelet Rich Plasma and Stem Cells to treat various musculoskeletal pains and injuries. He can be followed on his website, www.ChicagoArthritis.com
