If you’ve recently suffered an injury, or if you suffer from chronic pain or other physical limitations, you might be wondering what your treatment options are. While surgery is necessary in some cases, depending on your problem, your doctor may also be able to recommend a minimally or non-invasive procedure. In fact, not only are recovery times faster with these kinds of procedures, but they’re less risky, too.
Lower Risk
Though surgery is often used to treat trauma that the body has undergone, surgery in and of itself can be traumatic to the body. To fix the issues that arise inside the body, incisions must be made, and in the case of open surgeries, these incisions must be large. These large incisions take a long time for our bodies to heal and can cause complications relating to bleeding, swelling, inflammation, and infection. However, depending on the injury or issue, invasive open surgery can be avoided.in favor of minimally or non-invasive procedures. These kinds of procedures allow for much smaller incisions, and in some cases, no incision at all, reducing your risk of complications.
Minimally-Invasive Arthroscopic Surgery
Arthroscopy, also known as arthroscopic surgery, is a kind of minimally invasive orthopedic surgery used to treat joint problems. The procedure gets its name from its use of an arthroscope, a small, tube-shaped medical instrument that contains a camera and a light. Rather than making a large incision to perform open surgery, a surgeon uses arthroscope by inserting it into a small incision, allowing the surgeon to see inside the joint—hence the name, with “artho” meaning “joint,” and “scope” (from the Greek “skopein”), meaning “to look.”
By enabling the surgeon to look inside the joint in a far less invasive way than traditional open surgery, arthroscopy is easier on the body. For instance, arthroscopic surgery is less damaging to the soft tissues that surround joints, reducing bleeding, swelling, and inflammation within the body, and also speeding recovery times. Overall, arthroscopy allows a patient to heal faster and get out of the hospital sooner with a much shorter and less painful recovery time.
Non-Invasive Orthobiologic Injections
One of the most important abilities our bodies have is the ability to heal, and orthobiologic injections work by enhancing those naturally-occurring healing processes. In fact, rather than injecting something foreign, orthobiologic injections utilize natural substances from within your own body. For instance, one kind of orthobiologic injection is called PRP, or platelet-rich plasma. Normally, plasma helps your body circulate blood cells and platelets, the latter of which form blood clots to help stop bleeding and carry growth factors necessary for healing. The injections for PRP treatments are made from the patient’s own blood, creating a plasma solution with 5 to 10 times the standard amount of platelets. This solution is then injected directly into the injured area, allowing the body to heal faster than it normally would.
There are other kinds of orthobiologic injections as well, like extracellular matrices (ECMs) and stem cell therapies, and if you’re curious about which would work best for you, consider making an appointment with Dr. Rytel for a consultation on these non-invasive procedures. There are many benefits to choosing this kind of procedure—on top of healing your body and restoring function, this non-invasive body treatment also has a minimal recovery time, leaves no scars, and is very low-risk.
Non-Invasive Pain Management is Possible
If you’re wondering if your injury or another kind of issue can be treated with a minimally or non-invasive procedure, or if you’re looking for a doctor for non-invasive treatment in the Pittsburgh area, it’s time to contact Dr. Rytel. As a fellowship-trained and board-certified orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Rytel specializes in minimally invasive arthroscopic surgeries on the shoulder, elbow, and knee, as well as orthobiologic injections.
Request an appointment online or call (412)-661-5500 to schedule an appointment today at Rytel Sports Medicine!
