Rotator Cuff Tears: Is Surgery Your Only Option?

The rotator cuff refers to a group of four muscles and tendons that stabilize your shoulder joint and allow you to move and rotate your arms. Both acute injury and gradual wearing down of your tendons can result in a rotator cuff tear.

This type of injury is usually seen in basketball or tennis players, painters, carpenters, and other people who are involved in heavy labor. Rotator cuff injuries are more common in adults over the age of 40.

The first line of treatment typically involves medications like acetaminophen and anti-inflammatory drugs. Your doctor might also suggest steroid injections into your shoulder joint for temporary pain relief.

If your symptoms become unmanageable, surgery might be presented as your only option—but it’s not. Here, we’ve listed some non-surgical alternatives to traditional surgical treatment for rotator cuff tears, so you can make informed decisions.

Non-Surgical Treatments for Rotator Cuff Tears

Cell-Therapy Ortho-Biologics

If you’re looking for an approach that focuses on healing and repairing damage as opposed to targeting symptoms alone, cell-therapy ortho-biologics might be the right option for you. It takes advantage of your body’s natural regenerative healing ability to minimize pain and improve mobility issues.

During this procedure, trained medical professionals will harvest stem cells from your body and inject them into the affected areas to stimulate regeneration. The procedure is quick, safe, painless, and minimally invasive.

The recovery period is way shorter when compared to surgery. In fact, most patients resume normal activities within 24-48 hours.

Functional Rehabilitation

Research shows that patients who opt for functional physical therapy to manage injured rotator cuffs demonstrate high levels of satisfaction, improvement in function, and success in avoiding surgery.

Functional rehabilitation is focused entirely on helping patients overcome the injury and restore function to the joint. In cases where this is not possible, the goal is to get them as close to their pre-injury state as possible and help them learn to live with their new limitations.

This therapy works on the understanding that every patient is different and has their own unique needs and expectations. So, it is tailored to fit individual patients’ lifestyles and rehabilitation goals.

PRP Therapy

During a PRP therapy session, a highly-trained team of medical professionals will extract the platelet-rich plasma from your blood and inject it back into the injured area. The platelets play a crucial role in tissue repair and speed up the healing process. It is a quick, low-risk procedure with no recovery time.

PRP therapy is considered to be a safe and effective alternative to cortisone injections which have several side effects.

At Orthobiologics Associates, we use the most advanced technology to ensure our patients get the best care available while avoiding invasive surgeries and harmful medications. To learn more about our personalized treatments and how we can help you, give us a call at (833) 600-0184 or contact us online.