Stem Cell Therapy Options

What is Stem Cell Therapy?

Stem cells have 2 basic properties: they can reproduce themselves, and they can evolve into other body tissues.

Stem cells are essential for life, and all of us have stem cells throughout our entire bodies. The tissues all over your body are not the same as they were 10 years ago. All of our body tissues are constantly breaking down and building back up. There is a harmonious balance between tissue breakdown and new tissue formation. In fact, some scientists believe that because the balance slowly shifts over time to tissue breakdown that is the reason that we age! Our skin completely replaces itself every 30 days. Our blood cells completely turn over every 4 months. The lining of our GI tract sloughs off in tiny amounts every day and is completely replaced in a month.

Our bodies are a miraculous machine….able to repair damaged and worn out tissue with new tissue of exactly the same type! Think about it….if we replaced GI tissue with skin tissue we would all starve to death because we would no longer be able to absorb nutrients. So the body can heal itself to a large extent….cut the skin, break a bone, bite your cheek….it all heals because those tissues have good circulation, and the body can bring growth factors and stem cells to the injured area and repair it.

So why don’t joints self repair? Why can’t we repair damaged cartilage before it gets thinner and thinner, eventually leading to denuded areas of bone on bone arthritis? The simple reason is that joints do not have adequate circulation. There is no artery inside any joint. Cartilage gets oxygen and nutrients that diffuse or are dissolved in tissue fluid that comes from the underlying bones. This circulation is enough to keep it alive, but is not adequate enough to repair damage that occurs with trauma, repetitive use, and aging.

So over time and after trauma, our joint cartilage starts to wear out, sometimes slowly over years and sometimes very quickly over a few months. In the past, the only remedy for a worn out joint was surgical joint replacement. But stem cell therapy has changed all that. It has and will revolutionize the treatment of arthritis.

A Double Dose of Stem Cells
and Growth Factors

• Source of Stem Cells and Growth Factors: Autologous (from you)
• Treatment Areas: Knees, Hips and Shoulders
• Stage of Arthritis: Moderate to Severe

Growth Factors

• Source of Growth Factors: Autologous (from you)
• Treatment Areas: Lumbar facet and SI joints, small joints, muscles and tendons
• Stage of Arthritis: Mild

The Origins of Stem Cell Therapy

Years ago, doctors began experimenting with stem cell therapy by injecting stem cells into arthritic joints.

They reasoned that if they put fresh, living stem cells into a sick joint that perhaps they would somehow ‘recognize’ the damage and would turn into cartilage. Well, they turned out to be right, sort of. Their research showed that injecting stem cells into arthritic joints did indeed lead to tissue repair and in some cases growth of new cartilage. Up until several years ago we thought that the stem cells we injected actually ‘turned into cartilage.’

We now know that that is not exactly what happens. The living stem cells, and in some cases even DEAD ones, have specialized markers on their surface. These special chemical markers are recognized by the dormant, inactive stem cells that are already inside the joint but aren’t doing anything. Apparently these chemical signals trigger the dormant, native stem cells to wake up and start dividing, making new tissue to repair the damage.

This is a revolutionary concept in medicine….inducing the body to heal itself using its own tissues! This is similar to the concept of curing cancer by inducing the body’s own immune system to make antibodies and specialized killer cells that destroy cancer. This same concept is behind the fact that we can use vaccines to induce antibodies to fight and prevent disease. (Edward Jenner prevented smallpox this way in the late 1700’s, and doctors used horse serum with antibodies against influenza to treat patients during the Great Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. And scientists TODAY are doing the exact same thing right now to fight COVID 19). The body can do amazing things….we are discovering new ways of helping the body heal and prevent disease.

Stem cell therapy is not yet a ‘cure’ for arthritis, but it is the first and only treatment ever devised that can change the natural course of degenerative arthritis. All other arthritis treatments…cortisone, gel shots, pain medications, etc….have never been able to slow down the inexorable deterioration of arthritis. Our hope with stem cell therapy, even in those with advanced disease facing joint replacement surgery, is that we can slow down the progression of disease in order to delay surgery or prevent surgery all together