What to know about regenerative medicine? The future is now!

10 May What to know about regenerative medicine? The future is now!

Did it ever occur to you that the body has natural healing powers?

Historically medical doctors were forced to look outside the body to treat symptoms and cure disease states. Armed with medications and surgeries, doctors employed these tools and their individual healing powers in an attempt to create a state of wellness and alleviate suffering.

These external tools were greatly effective for many patients. However they often carried significant side effects, and had a collateral impact on a person’s wellbeing and life style. The classic example is a patient taking weeks to months to fully recover from a surgery. Or the patient taking a pharmaceutical drug daily and being left to endure the burden of that medication and its side effects.

With regenerative medicine therapies, such as Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) and Stem Cells, the old paradigm is on the cusp of being broken and fundamentally changed.

For years surgeons have been implementing the use of PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) as a side therapy when performing orthopedic surgeries. However, in the last 10 years there has been wide spread, and emerging literature to support the use of “our own” blood cells (Platelets and Stem Cells) as stand alone treatments.

What is PRP and what are Stem cells, and how do they work you might ask?

Platelets are a type of blood cell that for the most part we all have in our blood. Platelets are primarily involved in blood clotting after an injury, and are one of the initial cells that start what is known as the inflammatory cascade. For this reason, platelets are a large part of what seems to start the healing process in our bodies. Particularly when a sudden or spontaneous injury occurs.

Platelet Rich Plasma is basically the process of concentrating a person’s own platelets from their own blood. A person’s blood it drawn via IV, and then using a centrifuge (spinning device) the platelets are concentrated and separated from the remaining blood products.

Stem Cells on the other hand are what we call progenitor cells, meaning these cells have the potential to turn into any other cell in the body (given the right environment). Stem cells are very active in our bodies when we are young and during the early stages of life and growth. These cells can also be extracted from our own bodies as they reside in the bone marrow.

Regenerative medicine is a field of medicine aimed at re-storing, rejuvenating, and regenerating damaged, aged, or injured body parts and/or tissue. Using the above knowledge, we as physicians at Integrative Pain Care , can inject these cells into an area of pain or injury to promote healing and tissue regrowth.