There’s a lot of excitement in orthopedic surgery and in the news media about stem cells. Here at Crovetti Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, we are happy to provide either a platelet-rich plasma, a PRP injection, or a stem cell injection. Each of these is a sample of your blood or bone marrow, the first being taken from a vein in your arm and the second taken from the crest of your hip. Once this sample is obtained, it is spun quite quickly in a centrifuge to isolate the different layers found in these blood tissues. Once we obtained the layer that contains the best healing potential, we inject that back into the area of injury whether this is an elbow, a shoulder, a knee, or a hip. These injections are exciting because they allow your body the potential to heal itself and we’re using your own tissue to promote that healing. We’d be happy to talk to you more about these injections at your next office visit.