Hi, My name is Madison Hatcher and I am a freshman at the University of North Florida and a part of the Women’s Volleyball Team. I have been playing ball for 8 years now, and have been battling chronic patella tendinitis for 2 years. I have been to 4 different orthopedic surgeons and 4 different physical therapists. I have done it all when it comes to treatment, you name it! Ultrasound, Hivomat, eStem, deep tissue massages, intense hip strengthening, pilates…all of it basically. No results, same pain and symptoms. When I came to UNF they recommended I try PRP shots, I was up for anything to help my knee so I went for it!
My experience with the PRP shots has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. I had 3 rounds of the shots all within a 3 week time span. The shots were painful, Im not going to lie. My first shot had me feeling GREAT about 4 days after! Then came the next shot, which left my knee very sore and stiff. The last shot was like the first, good results! I took off the next 4 weeks of volleyball, only doing ab workouts, pilates, hip exercises, and etc. No jumping or running! My knee was feeling awesome, not much pain at all whatsoever! So the next week I was cleared to do so jumps off a box and landing onto the floor in a deep squat. No vertical jumping was allowed until the following week.
So Last week I talked to my trainer and he asked if I wanted to start jumping today, I said YES! But unfortunately, I took that the wrong way and went into practice and started full on jumping, hitting, everything….and my knee hurt…bad! My trainer told me that he meant I could start light jumping, only a few times off a bosu ball, he called it “graded jumping.” So because my excitement got the best of me, I am not back to square one basically. The pain was pretty bad the couple days after. Yesterday, our trainer tried some kinesio taping to pull my patella inward becasue I have a slight tilt that is prorbably pulling on the tendon. So, that is my PRP story…I would probably have had a much more sccessful story to tell if I had waited a couple months, but in a Division I sport…that wasnt really an option. But, Im glad I got them because I feel as though they’ll end up helping me in the long run!
