A Tale of 2 Different Patients

One of the joys of clinical practice is the diversity of patients that you see. Diversity in who they are, in their demographics, but also diversity of pathology and presentation as well. I have two cases today that really are a good example of that.

The first is a 84-year-old woman, high functioning, who recently became a great grandmother, seeing me for her knee osteoarthritis. And number two is a 41-year-old man, who is active military and in the last couple years transitioned to more of a training role, and he has a number of chronic injuries affecting his left shoulder, left elbow and right knee.

Very different, very different level of function, but goals are in some interesting ways similar. Namely, can you reduce pain, keep them at a very high baseline function level, and can you do this in a low-risk, high-reward sort of way?

In the case of the 84-year old who has chronic knee osteoarthritis, it’s been essentially treating her roughly every 18 months for the last seven to eight years, with a high concentration for her knee osteoarthritis joints, and also treating her ligaments around the knee with what’s called Platelet Lysate as well as Dextrose Prolotherapy to add more stability as well, and she’s done really well with that.

In the case of the younger man who’s still a very high level of physical activity, it’s a matter of treating some of his soft tissue injuries, but also some of the early arthritic component that he has as well. So a combination of different sorts of PRP, different concentrations, as well as Platelet Lysate to treat some of the ligamentous injuries as well. And again, in his case, treating him roughly every year or so for one or another sort of injury that he’s developed over time. In both cases, fortunately, these are folks that have done well for the last few years with treatment, they’ve been able to avoid surgery, they’ve been able to maintain their activity level, at a very high level. In the case of the man, being able to maintain a active military duty lifestyle. And in the case of the great-grandmother, being able to spend her time with her family, and doing all the activities that she wants to do. Those are great outcomes in both cases, and hopefully they both continue those kind of great outcomes.