For more than 25 years, my job was to operate. I performed thousands of orthopedic procedures, everything from torn sports tendons and shredded knees to full joint replacements. I was good at it, and I'm proud of the people I helped get back on their feet.
But somewhere in the middle of all those cases, a question started following me out of the operating room: how many of these could we have avoided? How many joints did I replace that might have held on longer with the right care? How many tendons did I repair that the body could have rebuilt if we'd helped it sooner?
That question led me to regenerative medicine. I trained extensively in platelet-rich plasma, PRP, the practice of concentrating the healing platelets from a patient's own blood and placing them, under ultrasound guidance, exactly where the tissue is breaking down. I watched it calm arthritic knees, settle stubborn tennis elbows, and quiet years of heel pain. Not for everyone, and not for everything, but for the right person, with the right problem, it worked.
So I brought it home to the Big Island. Island residents shouldn't have to book a flight to Honolulu to get regenerative care that's become standard on the mainland. Now they don't.
I'd rather refer you to surgery than take your money for something that won't work. That's not a marketing line, it's the rule I built this practice on.
That last part matters more than anything else on this page. A lot of clinics offer PRP and never mention the conditions where the research simply doesn't support it. I won't do that. If the evidence says PRP can help you, I'll tell you. If it says you need a different treatment, or a surgeon's scalpel, I'll tell you that too, and point you toward what actually works.
