Stem Cell Treatment for Back Pain and Joint Disease
Relieve Chronic Pain without Surgery Stem Cell Treatment for Back Pain and Joint Disease
Joint diseases are known for the pain they cause. Then there is the back pain that many people are tied to without relief. There is little that is done to avail the much needed permanent relief to the patients enduring the chronic back and joint pains. To some people pain may be synonymous to addiction as that is where their addiction stemmed from. The common way of dealing with pain is to give the patients pain medication that in most the case is to help them endure the pain rather than correcting the mishap in the joints and promote healing. The opioids that are mostly used by pain patients often cause addiction and dependence when used for a long time. However there is now a ray of hope for these patients suffering from chronic back pain and joint diseases.
It has been reported that Medical researchers are trying a new treatment for low back pain. Their hope is that harvesting and then re-injecting the body’s own bone marrow which is rich in stem cells may repair worn-out discs in the spine and promote recovery. The stem cells have been a center of focus in degenerative medicine and several experiments that have been done on the use of stem cells for treatment of degenerative disease have raised hope of patients. Already there are doctors using the stem cell therapy in treating their patients suffering from various diseases.
The researchers are reported to have done a small study in which none of the patients reported any adverse effects on their pain after they were treated with the bone marrow derived stem cells. Therefore the study is deemed safe and effective. However the team of researchers admitted that there is still more research that is needed to be done on the area but still they maintained that it is a promising cutting-edge treatment.
“I tell everybody that this is experimental, with a capital E,” said Dr. Joseph Meyer Jr., an anesthesiologist and pain medicine specialist at the Columbia Interventional Pain Center, in St. Louis. “We don’t know if it works. I do believe that it’s safe, but it might not do anything for you.”
For the study, Meyer and his colleagues reviewed the case histories of 24 patients who were injected with their own bone marrow aspirate cellular concentrate (BMAC). Bone marrow concentrate contains adult stem cells, which have been called the body’s own repair kit because they can change into different cells and tissues in the body and potentially heal different kinds of tissues that are often affected by various diseases.
The patients that Dr. Meyer used in the experiment were reported to have suffered from chronic low back pain for anywhere from three months to 12 years and had had shown some evidence of degeneration, or damage, to the discs that cushion the bones of the spine. Disc degeneration is common with age, and it is thought to be a major cause of low back pain. Most of the times patients will be advise to exercise and reduce weight but if these methods fail to give any desirable results then the only option available for the patients has been invasive spinal fusion surgery.
“Fusion is a big, big step with questionable effectiveness,” he said. “Often, you’re back in the same boat a year later.”
As noted by Dr. Meyer, the invasive spinal fusion surgery is not really a lasting solution but rather helps temporarily as the problem will reoccur later most even more unbearable. He therefore opines that the stem cell treatment is potentially the best treatment that patients should consider before delving into spinal fusion surgery.
The healing potential of the stem cells
From the experiment that Dr. Meyer conducted, a procedure that he did by using a long needle with which he harvested stem cells from the bone marrow of the patients and re-injected it into the spinal discs that had problems, half the patients used in the in the experiment went back to their other procedures over the next 30 months, making it impossible to know what might have affected their back pain. Of the other 12 who had no other kinds of treatment, 10 reported that their pain lessened in the two to four months after their injections. After a year, eight patients were still reporting significant pain relief, while three said their back pain had not improved. One patient had not yet reached the 12-month mark. After two years, five said their back pain was better, and three had no improvement. For the other four, it was still too early to tell.
Nevertheless, the healing powers of the mesenchymal stem cells have been hailed by different doctors, institutions and researchers. The stem cells owe their ability to treat to their unique properties; they are capable of dividing and renewing themselves for long periods; they are unspecialized; and they can give rise to specialized cell types. It is these distinct characteristics of the stem cells that make them effective in treatment of degenerative diseases.
With research that has been done on the effects of stem cells injection in healing the patients suffering from joint pain and other pains, it can be concluded that there is more hope for those suffering from these diseases. Dr. Dalal Akoury (MD) is an expert in integrative medicine and a founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Center located at Myrtle Beach South Caroline. Visit her for more information on most lifestyle diseases.
Relieve Chronic Pain without Surgery Stem Cell Treatment for Back Pain and Joint Disease
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