My reason for asking the original question is that at the regenerative medicine courses
@oreosandsake one of the lecturers stated that they have patients stop NSAIDS prior to and after PRP and stem cell injections because it may interfere with efficacy by halting or altering the healing process. Made me wonder if I should jump to NSAIDS for acute sprains because it MIGHT halt healing which MIGHT lead to a non-healing injury. Does this sound a little crazy?
NSAIDs block a small piece of the intricate cascade that begins once you have an injury. in western medicine, we have demonized and characterized what we don't fully understand in this complex cascade by calling it "inflammation" and thus, it becomes the duty of every physician to "Stamp out inflammation" whenever it is present. as someone mentioned, there is some data that suggests nsaids reduce rates of bone fusion after joint arthroplasty, etc I dont think a little NSAID, or even a little corticosteroids for that matter (which also impairs healing, upregulates catabolic genes/proteins, downregulates anabolic genes/proteins, and turns on cell death...) are going to be
that deleterious. it is repeated use and application that can create net catabolic effects.
in healthy patients with acute injury, who should heal on their own the nsaids should not have a huge net effect. they may concievably/theoretically (unproven) increase healing time. you should ask yourself if NSAIDs actually belong in the early management treatment algorithm for these injuries, both acute and chronic, and if in the future we will change our concepts regarding this to move away from nsaids.
the point in collecting the platelets is to concentrate the growth factors contained within the alpha granules inside them. medications that can affect platelet function/degranulation including NSAIDs and even SSRI for that matter are thought to impair this process. unless the patient is taking nsaids for a life threatening condition (Afib, cardiac stents, etc) we generally recommend that they are held prior to having a PRP procedure. that being said, there are numerous other variables that have been demonstrated to vary the GF release profile, concentration from platelets including things as simple as exercise.
