More on Ed Reed's injections

SAN DIEGO -- The news came from our Adam Schefter this morning that safety Ed Reed isn't expected to play in tonight's season opener.

It's not exactly unexpected, although the Texans spent all week insisting he had a chance.

When Reed spoke on Friday, it sounded less likely, though. He talked more specifically about the injections he received in Vail, Colo., from his hip surgeon, Dr. Marc Philippon. I held off on writing exactly what Reed said until I could offer some more insight. For that, I consulted our medical expert, Stephania Bell.

Here's what Reed said: "Those injections, it takes like two weeks to kick in and two weeks will be Monday, Monday night. I still kind of feel the injections, the needles are this long. Put me to sleep basically. I had four of them all in the same spot. It's a little different feeling for me. ... Once you get the blood flowing a little bit and everything, I'm starting to feel a lot better. You can say that I got a step or two back. ... The injections basically, in layman's terms, helped speed up the healing process. Takes the blood out, spin it, if I'm not mistaken, I could be saying it wrong, put the good blood back in."

Based on that description, Bell said Reed's injections sounded like platelet-rich plasma injections, whose efficacy for certain conditions are still debated within the medical community. The thinking by those in favor of PRP injections is that there is only upside to doing them because injecting a person's own blood back into his body doesn't introduce anything synthetic.

"The intent behind these injections is to promote healing in the area," she said. "It's not necessarily routine.

"... Is the hip going to be perfect in a player with extensive wear and tear on the joint? Nope. But that's not necessarily the goal. Being functional so it's not constantly painful so he can still perform at a high level is."


(espn.com)