New York City’s very own Dr. Ronit Adler, a pain management physician, was recently featured as a guest on the Donna Drake show. Donna Drake is a motivational television program filled with inspirational stories, tips, and resources. The show features Emmy Award-winning personalities, East Coast socialites & people on the move, celebrities, actors, and people in film.
Dr. Ronit Adler is an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist working with patients in Long Island, NY. She is married to Dr. Epstein, a neurosurgeon.
In the interview with Donna Drake, Dr. Adler talks about her experience working side by side with her husband, oftentimes providing treatments that supplement each other. In fact, Dr. Epstein was one of her first patients of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy, a safe, noninvasive procedure that uses the patient’s own blood to repair tissues, stimulate growth factors, and decrease the inflammatory response in a certain area.
“The best result was my husband, who was the biggest skeptic, injuring himself while he was at the beach. He tore all of his muscles (on his upper left leg), and couldn’t even walk.
And him being the neurosurgeon skeptic (because they believe the only way to heal things is through surgery) I said Jeff, Monday we’re going to take you into the procedure room, I’m going to do it under fluoroscopic guidance which is X-ray, to make sure you are where you think you are.
We took his PRP and we took quite a bit because he had a large area of injury and spun down his blood, reinjected it and I swear it was like a miracle happened. And what made me happy is that he went from a skeptic to a believer because he saw it firsthand.”
A Brief History of Platelet Rich Plasma
Scientists began looking at PRP as early as the 1970’s. Elite athletes created demand for the procedure. Athletes previously had no other available therapy other than physical therapy (which took months), surgery (which came with potential future complications) or steroid injections (which were harsh on the body’s systems).
Surgery was oftentimes a permanent solution for an athlete with a physical injury, one which could not be undone. Steroid injections offered a quick fix, but could not be taken over an extended period of time. With PRP injections, physicians began to offer up ways to heal the body in a moderate time-frame. For some athletes, it was easier to receive a shot of one’s own platelet-rich blood than it was to undergo knee surgery, for example.
How Does PRP Therapy Work?
Blood is drawn from the patient. The blood is spun in a centrifuge. The best parts of the blood are extracted. Doctors call this PRP, or Platelet Rich Plasma, a combination of white blood cells, growth factors, and plasma. Doctors then reintroduce it via a small needle into the patients’ problem area.
Today, the equipment needed to perform the procedure are available worldwide. Through a simple injection, performed on an area numbed by prescription-strength topical cream such as lidocaine, the procedure can be done with no downtime, incisions, or scarring. The candidates that really benefit from PRP may not be medically fit to have surgery, or, in the case of athletes, may be on an off-season, in which case they have the luxury of letting their body recuperate. PRP treatments typically take 4 to 8 weeks to reach its full effect.
When questioned on the risk factors, Dr. Adler replied:
“There are so little risk factors; I don’t even know of any complications. It’s a holistic approach. You’re taking the patient’s own blood, you’re not doing anything exogenous to it or extrapolating from the norm. Normally people (doctors and physicians) add products to the PRP, such as anti-coagulants or calcium chloride to activate it, but my light source actually activates it without putting any contaminants into it.”
PRP is a procedure that is performed on individuals with tolerable pain who do not wish to undergo surgery or continue using steroids and pharmaceutical drugs. Of course, the treatment can be combined with surgery, steroids, or drugs, but the non-invasive, non-surgical insertion of the growth factors derived from the patient’s own blood can oftentimes be enough to regenerate new collagen and blood vessels in the desired area to help heal their injury or problem area.
About Ronit Adler, MD – Aesthetic & Pain Management physician in NYC
Dr. Adler works in Babylon, NY and specializes in Anesthesiology, Pain Management and Pain Medicine. Dr. Adler is affiliated with Southside Hospital, Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center and Hospital For Special Surgery. Dr. Ronit Adler has spent the past 20 years speaking and teaching on the subject of pain management, and prides herself on utilizing state of the art, wellness-oriented medicine.