In the last 6 months I’ve had both Hyaluronic Acid and Cortisone shots to the bum knee, neither with very satisfying results. So I’m moving out of the realm of National Health Coverage and went ahead and got myself a Platelet Rich Plasma shot yesterday. Although this is not covered by the ‘Secu’ here in France, it seems to be fairly mainstream. My doctor has been giving these shots for 10 years and all his Wednesdays are devoted to them. I know a few people who’ve had good results from them, too, so I’m nearly optimistic.

The stuff you see above is the PRP, or maybe an AI generated image of it. PRP is your blood, or at least part of your blood, so the shots are considered safe. Here’s the procedure:

• The doctor takes 600ml of blood
• Runs it through a centrifuge for 10 minutes or so
• Something like this emerges…

Apart from the spelling, the imagine on the left more or less shows what I saw yesterday. You have blood at the bottom and “your blood’s water” (as my doctor explained it) at the top. He then skimmed the plasma off the top and took the middle part (about 10% of the total blood taken) to then inject it into my knee. All done at the office and well within an hour.

Today my knee is fairly stiff, which I am hoping is a good sign. According to my new friend Chatgpt, it is, since “PRP triggers an inflammatory response, which is part of the healing process.”

I’m frustrated that there always seems to be ‘something’ with this knee, but thankful that there’s always something new for me to try out. I might just make it to retirement without totally blowing this thing apart.