Elbow Pain
Non-Surgical Elbow Pain Treatment Options
Elbow Pain
In our over 25 years of helping people with elbow pain, we have been able to help patients with a diagnosis of:
- Tennis Elbow
- Golfer’s Elbow
- Elbow bursitis
- Elbow osteoarthritis
- Elbow ligament and tendon tears
We will often see these patients who have lingering elbow pain and continue to receive and remedy themselves with traditional “conservative” treatments that include:
- Resting
- Icing
- Anti-inflammatory medications
- Kinesio tape
- Physical therapy
- Massage
- Cortisone injections
- Sleeves and braces
- and Acupuncture.
While some will respond to these treatments the patients who come into our office have not. They have been scheduled for one of the many surgical procedures often suggested for treatment of chronic non-responsive elbow pain.
Elbow Pain Treatment Options
In our practice we have found PRP and bone marrow concentrate to be an effective and reliable treatment in certain patients. While there are many claims made about the effectiveness of these treatments, a custom, realistic approach and expectation of treatment outcomes will generally result in successful outcomes. Many people who seek these treatments have already been advised to consider surgery. But, as with any medical treatment, surgery can have its undesired effects. Even successful surgery can require months of physical therapy and diminished function.
Bone marrow aspirate concentrate
In our practice we have found PRP and bone marrow concentrate to be effective and reliable treatments in certain patients for various elbow ailments. Many people who seek these treatments have already been advised to consider surgery.
Bone marrow concentrate or bone marrow aspirate concentrate is the injection into the damaged, injured area of the elbow. The injection contains stem cells that have been drawn from the patient’s own bone marrow. These cells are “de-differentiated pluripotent” cells, which mean that they continue to divide to create more cells that can “morph” into the tissue needing repair—for our purposes, collagen needed for cartilage, ligaments, tendons and bone.
A recent study in the Journal of orthopaedics wrote:
“Bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) is an emerging, novel treatment for various bone and cartilage pathology and injury. Similar to other orthobiologic intra-articular injections like hyaluronic acid and PRP, BMAC gives patients the opportunity to restore the natural microenvironment of their damaged or diseased tissue. Bone marrow concentrate is commonly taken from pelvic bone, and contains mesenchymal and hematopoetic stem cells, platelets, growth factors, cytokines, and anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory cells. . .”
Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy
Platelet Rich Plasma therapy extracts the healing platelets from your blood and then re-injects the Platelet-Rich Plasma into the injured elbow. Research from leading medical universities and centers from around the world helps confirm our own observations of these treatments.
“(This) study adds to the evidence that PRP injection for intractable lateral epicondylitis of the elbow is an acceptable and useful treatment with improvement in symptoms in 56 out of 64 patients (87.5%). It adds to the literature in that we have tried to ascertain the effect of PRP on reducing the need for a complex, risk laden, surgical intervention. . .we consider PRP injection, for intractable lateral epicondylitis of the elbow, not only a safe but also very effective tool in reducing symptoms and have shown it has reduced the need for surgical intervention in this difficult cohort of patients.”
How to treat Elbow Pain
Dr. Marc Darrow, MD, JD., treats pain with non-surgical methods. These treatment methods described above can help many people alleviate pain and restore function. Please contact Dr. Darrow so we can begin our assessment of your candidacy for treatment.