by Stemedix | Dec 19, 2022 | Regenerative Medicine
Regenerative medicine, also known as stem cell therapy, uses the body’s natural healing response to promote tissue regeneration and repair. While the field is still developing, its benefits span many applications, from treating chronic illnesses to restoring function after sports injuries.
The most common treatments in regenerative medicine are stem cell therapy and platelet-rich plasma (PRP). Both methodologies start with the patients’ cells, genuinely capitalizing on self-healing and offering surprising benefits.
Alleviating Chronic Pain
Stem cell and PRP therapy introduce healing cells into damaged areas. Those cells can reduce inflammation, build new tissue, and prevent scar tissue from forming.
Patients might see the most benefits from using these therapies to alleviate pain from soft tissue injuries, including sprained ligaments, torn tendons, and strained muscles. In addition, new research shows promise for the treatment of degenerative conditions, such as osteoarthritis and degenerative disc disease.
Reduce the Use of Long-Term Medications
Traditional medical solutions for injuries or chronic pain include pain relievers or corticosteroid injections. Unfortunately, prolonged or excessive use of some medications harms your overall health.
Additionally, corticosteroid injections can cause more damage to your cartilage, tendons, nerves, and joints, despite temporarily alleviating pain symptoms.
Regenerative medicine treatments aim to heal the underlying cause of pain, not temporarily mask symptoms, reducing patients’ reliance on medications for relief.
Improve Healing Speed
Specific tissues and injuries take longer to heal than others. For example, the body’s healing process slows with age, lengthening the recovery period even for minor injuries. In addition, more severe injuries often take longer to heal.
Generally, slow-healing injuries are those that affect tissues with little blood supply, such as tendons or cartilage. Since platelets and stem cells travel through the blood to promote healing, injuries to these tissues take longer to recover.
Supplying damaged tissue with an extra boost of growth factors through PRP or stem cell therapy can help speed up the healing process.
Low Risk of Side Effects
When possible, regenerative treatment start with the patient’s own healing cells. As the treatment comes from the patient, there is little risk of rejection, infection, scarring, or heavy bleeding.
Overall Resilience and Strengthening
The effects of regenerative medicine can support long-term health and resilience. These treatments can potentially continue to strengthen the treated area even after healing as the tissues become more resilient and robust.
Regenerative medicine offers versatile, minimally invasive options to restore damaged tissue for more comprehensive healing. As science continues to develop these treatments, many patients are already enjoying the benefits of regenerative medicine. To learn more about the benefits of regenerative medicine, contact us today!
by Stemedix | Dec 12, 2022 | Lupus, Regenerative Medicine
Lupus can be unpredictable, with symptoms that physicians frequently mistake for other illnesses. Since the condition causes the immune system to attack its organs and tissues, it can affect any area in the body, including the skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart, joints, and lungs. While some patients are more likely to develop lupus, the cause is unknown in most cases. However, regardless of the cause, treatments can help to manage symptoms. Here we will discuss what you need to know about Regenerative Medicine for Lupus!
What Is Lupus?
Lupus is a chronic or long-term autoimmune disease that can affect any body area. The signs and symptoms of lupus vary widely, depending on the organs or tissues that the immune system attacks. Most patients with lupus experience some of the disease’s most common indications, which include:
- Fatigue
- Joint pain, swelling, or stiffness
- Fever
- A butterfly-shaped rash on the face
- Skin lesions
- Shortness of breath
- Dry eyes
- Headaches
Since each case of lupus presents differently, patients often struggle to receive a diagnosis. In addition, lupus often causes flare-ups, where the symptoms worsen for some time before improving or disappearing.
The severity of lupus and the health conditions resulting from the disease depends on the system attacked during a flare-up.
What Is Regenerative Medicine?
Regenerative medicine aims to manage a condition’s root cause rather than manage its symptoms. By combining biology and engineering principles, regenerative medicine develops new treatments focusing on replacing and repairing damaged cells, tissues, and organs.
How Can Regenerative Medicine Treat Lupus?
Lupus and other autoimmune diseases may benefit from stem cells that can help boost the body’s ability to fight inflammation and regulate the immune system.
The Lupus Foundation of America (LFA) has funded a Phase II trial with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study adult stromal cells for treating moderate to severe lupus.
The study hopes to identify if stem cell therapy can lessen the long-term effects associated with lupus, reduce the need for medications, and stop the condition from damaging vital organs.
In the study’s Phase I trial, participants experienced significantly decreased lupus disease activity and sustained that reduction for 52 weeks. In addition, patients were able to reduce or maintain lower levels of steroids to manage their symptoms.
The Phase II trial will work with a much larger pool of patients in hopes of producing consistent results. As stem cell therapies and other regenerative medicine treatments continue to offer safe and effective results, those struggling with chronic conditions like lupus may finally find relief in this new blend of biology and engineering.
by Stemedix | Nov 21, 2022 | Stem Cell Therapy, Regenerative Medicine
Regenerative medicine, also known as stem cell therapy, is an alternative medicine that seeks to replace damaged tissue and/or organs. Usually, this damage is a result of disease, congenital issues, or trauma. Regenerative therapies are distinct from clinical strategies. Typically, clinical strategies primarily focus on treating the symptoms of an issue. Regenerative therapies, on the other hand, seek to address the issue itself. Here we will discuss Regenerative Medicine for ankle pain.
In recent years and based on research, stem cell therapy has become a more often explored option either in conjunction with traditional medicine or if options have been exhausted. It can be used to help manage and potentially provide a healing cascade for joint pain associated with certain injuries and illnesses.
What Are Stem Cells?
Stem cells are raw materials in the body. They’re the cells from which other specialized cells are generated. Stem cells will divide to form more cells, which are called daughter cells. Daughter cells transform into either new stem cells or specialized cells that perform a more specific function. Some of these specialized cells include:
- Brain cells
- Blood cells
- Bone cells
- Heart muscle cells
Mesenchymal stem cells are fascinating because no other cell in the human body has the ability to generate completely new cell types.
What Is Stem Cell Therapy?
Stem cell therapy uses stem cells to help repair injured, dysfunctional, or diseased tissue. Using stem cells in medicine can help support your body’s ability to heal and regenerate itself while reducing pain.
Common Causes of Ankle Pain
Some common injuries associated with ankle pain include:
- Achilles tendon rupture
- Achilles tendinitis
- Avulsion fracture
Sometimes, ankle pain can happen without an injury, as in the case of rheumatoid arthritis, gout, osteoarthritis, and lupus.
Stem Cell Therapy for Ankle Pain
Since stem cell therapy has dual functions (i.e., the healing function and the pain relief function), stem cell therapy can manage ankle pain that is or isn’t associated with injuries.
Patients’ response to therapy may vary on when they see potential improvements, but generally they may experience some pain relief after around three weeks post-treatment. This improvement will gradually continue over the course of months or years.
Benefits of Regenerative Medicine
Depending on the degree of injury, stem cells have the ability to help regenerate the injured or diseased tissues. For patients who want to avoid invasive surgeries or pain medications to address their musculoskeletal injury, stem cell therapy may be an option to explore. This post was written by a medical professional at Stemedix Inc. At Stemedix we provide access to Regenerative Medicine for Orthopedic also known as Orthopedic Stem cell Therapy. Regenerative medicine has the natural potential to help improve symptoms sometimes lost from the progression of many conditions. If you want to learn more about Regenerative Medicine for ankle pain, contact us today at Stemedix.
by Stemedix | Nov 14, 2022 | Regenerative Medicine, PRP
Among athletic adults, chronic hip pain is common, affecting 30-40% of adults who play sports. In addition, adults over 60 are 12-15% likely to experience chronic hip pain, regardless of their activities. In the past, patients with chronic or acute hip injury pain typically had limited treatment options. The hips are the largest weight-bearing joints, making them more prone to overuse injuries and causing the hips to be especially difficult to heal. As a result, most hip injuries are treated with rest and physical therapy. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections can potentially offer an alternative. Keep reading to learn more about PRP Injections for hip injuries.
What Causes Hip Pain?
Hip pain and injuries can affect patients of all ages. However, it’s most common among older adults. While some patients may experience damage in their hips due to a childhood illness or a structural abnormality, most injuries occur from overuse or trauma.
Hip injuries that patients often experience include:
- Labral tears (damaging the cartilage)
- Strains or sprains
- Dislocated hip
- Fracture
When a hip becomes injured, patients are more likely to experience other conditions that cause chronic pain in the hips, such as arthritis or bursitis.
What Is Platelet-Rich Plasma?
Four components comprise whole blood: the red and white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. Each serves an essential function as blood moves through the body.
Platelets are part of the body’s healing response, clotting the blood, so your injury stops bleeding and releasing growth factors and anti-inflammatory mediators to help facilitate healing.
PRP starts with a sample of the patient’s blood, which then spins in a centrifuge. The centrifuge separates the platelets and plasma from the white and red blood cells. As a result, PRP contains a highly concentrated number of platelets in the plasma.
Once separated, a physician injects PRP into the patient’s injury site to stimulate and expedite healing.
How Can PRP Treat Hip Injuries?
Several studies examine the benefits of PRP in treating hip injuries and pain, specifically hip bursitis, osteoarthritis, and labral tears.
Hip bursitis is particularly difficult to treat, yet studies show the condition is unlikely to resolve without medical intervention. However, recent reviews of using PRP injections to treat hip bursitis show patients experienced significant improvement after their injections. In addition, long-term data showed that patients still benefited from the injections two years later.
In patients with labral tears in their hip, a study examining the effectiveness of PRP injections to treat hip pain found patients experienced significant symptom relief, pain reduction, and improved function after their injections.PRP injections for hip arthritis also show positive results, with patients undergoing the treatment experiencing remarkable improvements in their function and pain within two weeks. With PRP injections, patients suffering from hip pain may have a new avenue to explore when searching for relief. To learn more about PRP Injections for hip injuries, contact a professional at Stemedix today!
by Stemedix | Nov 7, 2022 | Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell Therapy
Chronic pain can develop anywhere in the body. It can develop from conditions like arthritis, result from a traumatic injury, or serve as an ongoing symptom of diseases such as cancer or neuropathic pain from diabetes. Often, patients suffering from chronic pain feel their only options for relief are ongoing medications to mask their symptoms or surgery, like a knee replacement to treat chronic knee pain. However, regenerative medicine, also known as stem cell therapy, offers a new option for chronic pain patients to explore that may be especially beneficial for those hoping to avoid surgery. Here we will break down why you should choose regenerative medicine over surgery.
Stem Cell Treatments Have Lower Risks than Surgery
You may want to avoid surgery for many reasons, and the risks of anesthesia and the potential for complications with large incisions are essential factors to consider. Stem cell therapy does not require general anesthesia, and since the process only requires injections, not incisions, there are no surgical wounds or scars.
If you’ve had an adverse reaction to anesthesia or possess risk factors for experiencing a negative response, such as age or a coexisting condition, stem cell therapy offers a non-surgical alternative to finding relief.
Stem Cell Treatments Require Minimal Downtime
Suppose that you lead an active, busy lifestyle. In that case, you probably don’t have time for an extended recovery period, especially when that recovery time keeps you from essential activities like driving or walking.
While most surgeries to alleviate chronic pain require extensive downtime, patients who choose stem cell treatments typically return to work or daily activities within a few days. Although stem cells do take time to heal damaged tissues, many patients begin to experience pain relief within two to three weeks.
Surgery Doesn’t Guarantee Pain Relief
When your chronic pain leads you to the point where you’re willing to undergo surgery, you want to know that the preparation, procedure, downtime, and expense will alleviate your pain. Unfortunately, however, that’s not always the case.
A 2018 study showed that 20% of those who undergo a total knee replacement still live with chronic knee pain. In addition, another study revealed that up to 58% of patients who undergo hip replacement surgery continue to endure persistent pain.
Stem Cell Treatments Are Effective and Non-Invasive
It can be hard to believe that stem cell injections can potentially offer similar, if not better, results than surgery. However, research following patients for two years after their stem cell treatments found all participant groups, regardless of age or BMI, experienced significant pain improvement. Patients who feel surgery is their only option to alleviate chronic pain should ask their doctor about the benefits of pursuing stem cell therapy. If surgery is unavoidable, stem cell therapy can also help post-surgery to help improve healing time and reduce pain. If you would like to choose regenerative medicine over surgery contact Stemedix today!
by Stemedix | Oct 31, 2022 | Regenerative Medicine, Athletic Injury
You might suffer from knee pain due to the strain of everyday activities, sports injuries, or accidents. Regardless of the cause, knee pain often worsens over time and can become so debilitating that walking or standing becomes painful. Here we will discuss how regenerative medicine can help damaged knees.
Where Does Knee Damage Occur?
Knee damage can result from continuous stress on the joint or from an injury. Overuse due to certain activities can cause tendinitis (inflammation in the tendons). Excess pressure or stress on the joint can lead to osteoarthritis, a condition in which the joint’s cartilage wears away.
Injuries that can damage the knee include sprained ligaments, strained muscles, or torn cartilage. Any injury to the knee can cause pain, swelling, stiffness, and difficulty walking. If you experience repeated knee injuries, you may be more likely to develop osteoarthritis.
What Is Regenerative Medicine?
Regenerative medicine, also known as stem cell therapy, harnesses the unique qualities of stem cells to repair and restore damaged tissue in the body.
Some cells in the body, like skin cells, constantly divide to create new cells, a process called mitosis. When those cells divide, they make two new, identical cells called daughter cells. Other cells in the body, such as neurons or certain heart cells, never divide at all.
Stem cells stand out as the only cells in the body capable of dividing to create various specialized cells, a process called differentiating. Since many specialized cells do not divide, stem cells are essential to the body’s health.
During stem cell therapy, stem cells are extracted from a patient’s bone marrow or body fat. They are then administered into injured areas, triggering tissue to repair and restore itself. The ability of stem cells to divide into other types of cells gives them impressive healing abilities.
How Can Stem Cell Therapy Help Repair Damaged Knees?
Currently, physicians are using stem cell therapy to promote healing in knee injuries, injecting the cells into damaged joints to accelerate the body’s repair process and foster a complete recovery.
Patients with osteoarthritis experience most of their pain due to a lack of cartilage. Irritation and inflammation can occur when the bones, muscles, and other joint tissues move without the cushioning effects of cartilage.
Stem cell treatments protect and heal the joint tissue affected by cartilage loss, keeping them from further affecting mobility and creating new knee issues, such as bone spurs.
Many patients are exploring the options of regenerative medicine to help manage their pain and inflammation, and in some cases, rebuild and repair damaged tissues. Find out how this new alternative medicine may help you. To learn more about how regenerative medicine can help damaged knees, contact a care coordinator at Stemedix today!
St. Petersburg, Florida
