Orthobiologics are injections made from your own blood, bone marrow or fat that help a worn joint or a stubborn tendon repair itself. In St. Louis, we use three of them: PRP, bone marrow concentrate and microfragmented fat. They fill the gap between physical therapy that failed and surgery you are not ready for.
Most people who find this page have already done the responsible things. They went to therapy. They took the anti-inflammatories until their stomach complained. They had the cortisone shot, then another, and each one wore off faster than the last. Then someone looked at the X-ray and said to come back when it gets worse.
That advice has a cost. Every month you wait, you move less, the muscle around the joint shrinks, the joint takes more load, and the pain gets louder. Orthobiologics are how we break that loop before it breaks you.
We built this service for the patient medicine tends to park in a waiting room. You are stuck in the middle if one or more of these describes you:
Dr. Padda is a licensed physician and surgeon. Surgery stays on the table when it is the right answer. For most people in the middle, it is the last step, and orthobiologics are the bridge that gets there later or never.
Your body already knows how to repair tissue. It sends platelets to a damaged spot first. Platelets are the repair workers: they release growth signals that call in blood supply, calm runaway inflammation and tell local cells to rebuild. In a chronically damaged joint or tendon, that crew stops showing up. Orthobiologics collect the crew from where it lives in your body, concentrate it, and deliver it to the exact spot that needs it under ultrasound or X-ray guidance.
You can’t make a carrot grow faster than it grows. These treatments work on biology’s clock, which means weeks to months, and they work best when the rest of the plan removes what was blocking repair to begin with.
Think of them as three crews of different size and skill.
In head-to-head trials for knee arthritis, PRP and bone marrow concentrate both beat hyaluronic acid, and PRP, bone marrow concentrate and hyaluronic acid all outperformed cortisone at six months. Microfragmented fat performed on par with PRP across six randomized trials.
The product matters, and so does the address. We deliver orthobiologics three ways:
Precision is the difference between treatment and guesswork. See why in ultrasound-guided versus blind injections.
A joint fails when breakdown outpaces repair, and three forces tilt that balance. First, metabolic terrain: insulin resistance and the low-grade inflammation that rides with it poison cartilage and tendon cells and slow every repair signal. Poor sleep makes it worse, because tissue repair runs on the night shift. Second, load: extra body weight, weak hip and thigh muscles, and a limp that shifts stress onto the wrong structure grind the same spot every day. Third, behavior and economics: the desk job, the drive-through lunch, the second shift that leaves no time to train. That is a system built to make the inflamed choice the easy one.
That is why lifestyle and behavior make up 40 to 50 percent of our protocol. The injection buys the window. Metabolic optimization, rehabilitation and laser therapy fill it.
Every orthobiologic procedure is done at our office at 4477 Woodson Rd in St. Louis under local anesthetic. You are awake, you feel pressure more than pain, and most patients drive themselves home. Expect soreness for a couple of days. Protect the area for the first few days and follow the rehab plan. Some patients feel better in three weeks; others need a second or third treatment, decided by how the tissue responds.
No. PRP, bone marrow concentrate and microfragmented fat are not billed to insurance. That is a payer budgeting decision. HSA and FSA funds are generally eligible.
The choice depends on the tissue, how advanced the damage is, and your metabolic health. Most tendon problems and mild to moderate arthritis start with PRP. Advanced arthritis and bone marrow lesions often call for bone marrow concentrate or microfragmented fat.
No. Every procedure is done under local anesthetic while you are awake, and most patients drive themselves home.
As many as the tissue needs and no more. There is no preset series. We recheck your function and decide together.
For many patients it delays surgery or makes it unnecessary. When surgery is the right answer, we say so.
Yes. Rehabilitation retrains the muscles that protect the joint. Without it, the same load that wore the tissue down keeps wearing it down.
If you have been told to wait until it gets worse, you do not have to wait. Over 90% of our accepted case-study patients see significant improvement. These are practice-reported figures from our own population, not trial outcomes, and individual results vary. Request the free orthobiologics guide above, or call our office at 4477 Woodson Rd in St. Louis at (314) 481-5000 and ask which treatment fits your joint or tendon.
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