PRP Glendale: clear help for a sore joint

Gentle movement often eases stiffness

Soreness after extra walking, lifting, or yard work often improves with a quieter day. Cold can ease swelling, while warmth may loosen your stiffness.

Move your joint through a range that stays comfortable. Stop if your soreness turns sharp, and don’t push against a stiff joint.

Firm shoes may ease the load on your knee, hip, or heel. A cane can also reduce strain during your daily tasks.

An exam can find why soreness keeps returning

Arthritis often causes stiffness after sitting and soreness during use. Old damage may make your joint swell after heavy use.

A worn tendon can hurt when an arm reaches overhead. Soreness outside the hip may also come from a tendon, not the joint.

The person doing the exam asks how the soreness started and which motions worsen it. The exam, and sometimes an X-ray, can separate joint wear from tendon trouble.

Treatment can stay focused on avoiding surgery

Physical therapy, less daily strain, and common medicine may be enough. Cortisone can act within days, though the relief may fade within months.

The treatment uses your blood. Staff spin it into layers and save one holding many platelets, called platelet-rich plasma or PRP.

Platelets gather where you’re cut and begin the repair response. The aim is to place the concentrated liquid inside your sore joint or beside its tendon.

QC Kinetix offers regenerative treatments, meaning non-surgical blood care intended to support the body’s repair response. An exam shows whether this care fits your soreness.

Sources

1. A Bayesian network meta-analysis restricted to LARGE randomized trials (at least 100 patients per group; 57 trials, 22,795 participants, 18 intra-articular interventions) found treatment effects were larger in the 35 high-risk-of-bias trials than in the 22 low/unclear-risk trials. Excluding high-risk trials, the effects of 16 of the 18 intra-articular interventions in knee or hip OA were smaller than the minimal clinically important difference and most were consistent with placebo effects; triamcinolone had the highest probability of exceeding the MID at weeks 2-6.

   Pereira TV, Saadat P, Bobos P, et al. — Effectiveness and safety of intra-articular interventions for knee and hip osteoarthritis based on large randomized trials: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.joca.2024.08.014.

2. A meta-analysis of 73 articles covering 5,895 patients quantified the PLACEBO response to intra-articular injection in knee osteoarthritis: statistically and clinically significant improvements in pain, function and quality of life at 1, 3 and 6 months, with responder rates above 50% at each of those points, declining by 12 months. The placebo response was stronger in trials with more female participants and in more recently published trials. This is why an uncontrolled 'our patients improved' figure carries almost no information.

   Previtali D, Boffa A, Di Laura Frattura G, et al. — Placebo response to intra-articular injections in knee osteoarthritis: magnitude, evolution over time, and influencing factors. A systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression. EFORT Open Reviews, 2025. DOI: 10.1530/EOR-2025-0022.

3. In the RESTORE trial - the largest placebo-controlled PRP trial in knee osteoarthritis - 288 adults aged 50+ with symptomatic Kellgren-Lawrence grade 2-3 medial knee OA received three weekly intra-articular injections of leukocyte-poor PRP from a commercial system or saline placebo. At 12 months the mean change in knee pain was -2.1 points with PRP versus -1.8 with saline (difference -0.4; 95% CI -0.9 to 0.2; P=.17) against a minimum clinically important difference of 1.8, and the change in medial tibial cartilage volume was -1.4% versus -1.2% (difference -0.2%; 95% CI -1.9% to 1.5%; P=.81). Twenty-nine of 31 prespecified secondary outcomes showed no significant between-group difference. The authors concluded the findings do not support use of PRP for knee OA.

   Bennell KL, Paterson KL, Metcalf BR, et al. — Effect of Intra-articular Platelet-Rich Plasma vs Placebo Injection on Pain and Medial Tibial Cartilage Volume in Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis: The RESTORE Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA, 2021. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2021.19415.

4. A meta-analysis of eight studies (648 patients, mean age 59) judged at low risk of bias found PRP significantly better than intra-articular corticosteroid for knee OA symptoms at 3, 6 and 9 months (P<0.01), with the largest effects at 6 months (SMD -0.78; 95% CI -1.34 to -0.23) and 9 months (SMD -1.63; 95% CI -2.14 to -1.12). This is the strongest available case for PRP as a longer-acting alternative to a steroid shot.

   McLarnon M, Heron N — Intra-articular platelet-rich plasma injections versus intra-articular corticosteroid injections for symptomatic management of knee osteoarthritis: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 2021. DOI: 10.1186/s12891-021-04308-3.

5. The AAOS third-edition clinical practice guideline for non-arthroplasty management of knee osteoarthritis contains 29 recommendations, and the work group explicitly identified intra-articular corticosteroid, hyaluronic acid AND platelet-rich plasma as areas needing better research - including osteoarthritis characterisation, severity stratification, clinically relevant outcomes with controls for bias, and cost-effectiveness analysis. PRP is presented as an open research question in this guideline, not as a settled treatment.

   Brophy RH, Fillingham YA — AAOS Clinical Practice Guideline Summary: Management of Osteoarthritis of the Knee (Nonarthroplasty), Third Edition. Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 2022. DOI: 10.5435/JAAOS-D-21-01233.