Tag Archives: regenerative medicine

The Latest in Regenerative Medicine for Pain Management

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Stem Cell Injections

The latest substances uses mesenchymal stem cells, not embryonic.

One of the exciting new trends in pain management is the availability of regenerative medicine injections. These new therapies involve stem cell substances along with growth factors that have the capability of repairing and regenerating injured tissue as opposed to simply masking pain symptoms.

Here is the latest on the various Regenerative Medicine options available

The first option involves harvesting either bone marrow or fat from the patient. When stem cell research first started researchers looked at embryonic stem cells for tissue regeneration. The good news with this was that embryonic stem cells can differentiate into virtually any cell type in the body. The bad news was that the cells often did not know when to stop reproducing, and the chance of a cancer forming was possible.

Therefore, the stem cell products coming into reality use mesenchymal stem cells rather

Stem Cell therapy

The possibilities for knee cartilage regeneration are exciting.

than embryonic. The cells are still able to differentiate into numerous cell types, and do not have the problem with cancer formation by not knowing when to stop replicating.

When bone marrow is taken from an individual, it is usually harvested from the iliac crest and then immediately processed and reinjected into the area of interest. The same goes with harvesting of fat and then processing it immediately to reinject.

While these injection types appear to have some clinical benefit, there are no human studies available which definitively show benefit yet statistically.

Amniotic Fluid Stem Cell Rich Substances

One promising avenue for stem cell injection therapy is with amniotic fluid based substances. The amniotic fluid has exponentially more stem cells than an adult’s bone marrow. The amniotic fluid is harvested from consenting donors who undergo a C-section, whereas it would normally be discarded.

The fluid is processed at an FDA regulated laboratory, and even though it is going into an Pain Management Phoenixunrelated individual it turns out that it is an immunologically privileged situation. No host versus graft reactions have been seen in thousands of uses.

Today, clinical studies have shown excellent benefits of amniotic fluid derived stem cell rich injections for spinal fusion, wound healing for difficult wounds such as diabetes, adhesion barrier around the spinal cord, and initial small studies showing benefits for tendinitis, tendinosis, ligament injury and osteoarthritis.

The additional benefit of amniotic fluid derived injections is that no harvesting if necessary from the patient. The fluid is processed at an FDA registered lab and screened for a comprehensive amount of diseases. It is then cryogenically stored until the pain clinic in Phoenix is ready to use it. It’s a very exciting regenerative medicine possibility with amniotic based stem cell rich injections.PRP therapy Phoenix

The third avenue for regenerative medicine injections is called platelet rich plasma, or PRP therapy. This involves taking a blood draw from a patient’s arm of between 20 and 60 mL of whole blood. The blood is then placed into a centrifuge device and spun very quickly to separate into multiple layers.

This provides a highly concentrated solution of platelets along with various growth factors for injection into the problem area.

Pain Clinics in PhoenixSo far, three professional sports leagues along with the World Anti-doping Agency have approved of PRP use. Initial studies are showing benefits for tendinitis, tendinosis, ligament injuries, bursitis and degenerative osteoarthritis.

With a procedure that has such a low risk, and potentially huge benefit, it is rapidly increasing in popularity. Especially considering that multiple professional athletes have had the procedure performed including Tiger Woods, Hines Ward, and Troy Polamolu.

With multiple options for regenerative medicine now in the clinical reality, it is exciting that we are now entering regenerative medicine for real. Larger studies will show which of these regenerative medicine injection treatments best serves those with soft tissue injury or arthritis.

Arizona Pain Specialists offers multiple options for regenerative medicine. The first is PRP Phoenix Pain Managementtherapy. They just completed Phase 1 of an FDA clinical trial looking at stem cell injections in the disc space and are in the initial phases of starting a stem cell injection study for arthritic spinal joints and extremity joints.

All of this is cutting edge treatment. If you are having back, neck or joint pain and would like the most modern Phoenix pain management treatment available, call (602) 507-6550 today!

Is Platelet Rich Plasma the Holy Grail of Pain management?

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PRP therapy For many years now, the field of pain management has been itching for treatments that fix painful conditions rather than simply masking symptoms. Most pain management treatments today are very good at relieving pain, but mostly act as a proverbial Band-Aid.

For instance, epidural steroid injections are over 75% effective at relieving the pain from sciatica, but do not actually fix the pinched nerve problem.

Platelet rich plasma, also known as PRP, is a relatively new therapy in the field of Phoenix pain management and orthopedics. It has been used for quite a few years in other fields of medicine such as cardiovascular and urology.

PRP treatment involves a simple blood draw from a patient’s arm vein. Approximately 30 to 60 mL of blood is taken, and it is then placed into a centrifuge machine. This machine PRP injectionsspins the blood very fast and separates it into three layers.

The top layer consists of predominantly platelets along with growth factors. This is the platelet rich plasma that is used for the therapy and consists of approximately 5 Milliliters of the initial 60.
The other two layers are mostly red and white blood cells which are discarded.
The PRP is then injected into the area of injury. It is working well in various studies for golfers elbow, tennis elbow along with Achilles tendinitis and rotator cuff tendinitis.

It is also being shown effective for patellar tendinitis, helping to heal ligament and tendon tears including collateral ligaments around the knee and others.

Most recently, there is some research backing up the usage of platelet rich plasma for helping arthritis pain. One of the ways that PRP is effective includes its ability to call in the body’s stem cells to help repair the damaged tissue or bone. Stem cells are blank slate cells that can differentiate into tendon, ligament or cartilage cells to help repair injury.
So along with the PRP components including platelets and growth factors, the solution calls in stem cells as well.

Despite the excellent results being seen with PRP today, insurance companies are not yet covering the treatment. Thankfully, PRP does not cost thousands of dollars and is extremely cost-effective as an outpatient, low risk treatment.

az pain center

If you or a loved one is suffering from joint pain, arthritis, tendonitis, or a ligament or tendon injury, call Arizona Pain Specialists. The AZ pain clinics have Arizona pain doctors providing PRP therapy along with medication management, interventional pain treatments,chiropractic treatment, acupuncture, physical rehabilitation and spinal decompression therapy.

The clinics accept most major insurances along with worker’s compensation, personal injury, AHCCCS, Medicare and self pay. Call (602) 507-6550 today.

The 5 Biggest Trends In Pain Management

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The field of pain management is changing continuously. In a lot of ways the treatments are getting better, and every once in a while a fantastic new treatment evolves. One of the more significant evolutions, however, has been a better understanding of treating a person’s pain better rather than undertreating or ignoring it.

Here are 5 of the most impressive evolutions (or regressions) in pain management that are currently happening:

  1. Improvement in pain management in Arizona interventions. Over the last few years, there have been some improvements in pain procedure technology that have allowed physicians to get better results. One of these is transforaminal epidural shots. The initial type of epidural injection that was invented was called intra-laminar shots. Now pain docs are able to pinpoint place their needles into the location where the nerve root exits the back, getting the cortisone more accurately where it is needed. Another improvement in pain treatments is with radiofrequency thermal ablation machines. When they were first put on the market, they were only able to treat two areas simultaneously. Now they can do four, reducing the overall procedure time.
  2. Biologic treatments. Regenerative therapy is not just on the horizon, but is becoming reality. There are now injection materials that contain a number of regenerative ingredients, including hyaluronic acid, stem cells, and specific cytokines. This will hopefully show to be helpful in treating arthritis, soft tissue and cartilage injuries, and disc problems.
  3. Disc treatments have gone down. As the research has come out showing that intradiscal electrothermy and percutaneous discectomies have marginal results, their use is decreasing. In addition, there is some preliminary data showing that discography may promote degeneration of the disc. So its use is decreasing as well. The disc is such an enigma with how to treat it. Surgery is a roll of the dice at times, and interventional nonoperative pain treatments are a question mark too. If there is one area that could use a better option, it is degenerative disc disease.
  4. Performing kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty for spine fractures. These treatments are done as an outpatient, and do not involve surgery. They take less than an hour, and can provide quick pain relief for those with compression fractures. More pain management doctors in Arizona are learning how to do them in the pain management field.
  5. Comprehensive spine care centers. As more research comes out showing the benefits of multiple specialists participating in a patient’s care such as chiropractic phoenix az, comprehensive centers are becoming more common. This has benefitted patients tremendously by having more providers with varied backgrounds coming together for the benefit of the patient. Patients can end up needing less narcotics and becoming much more functional.

Preferred Pain Center is a Comprehensive Pain Center including Medical and Interventional Arizona Pain Doctors, Phoenix Chiropractors Treatment, Phoenix Physical Therapy, Spinal Decompression Therapy, and Manipulation Under Anesthesia.

Call (602) 507-6550 for your appointment TODAY!