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What is Regenerative Medicine?
The field of regenerative medicine focuses on utilizing natural healing processes as a remedy for patients of all ages with a variety of medical conditions. Regenerative medicine seeks to replace tissue that has been damaged by disease, trauma, or congenital issues, compared to the current clinical strategy that focuses primarily on just treating the symptoms.
This approach can amplify our bodies incredible natural healing process in the places it is needed most. Regenerative medicine is a relatively new field that brings together experts in chemistry, biology, computer science, genetics, engineering, medicine, robotics, among other fields to find solutions to some of the most challenging medical problems faced today.
When injured or invaded by disease, our body has an innate response to heal and defend itself. What if it was possible to harness the power of the body to heal and then accelerate it in a clinically relevant way? What if we could help the body heal faster and more efficiently?
The promising field of regenerative medicine is working to restore structure and function of damaged tissues. It is also working to create solutions for organs that become permanently damaged. The goal of this approach is to find a way to cure previously untreatable injuries and diseases.
Joint pain is caused by injury, degeneration, overuse, and even natural aging. Our best efforts to keep the body in shape can delay this deterioration, but as our cells age, their ability to recover from day-to-day usage and acute injury decreases. The areas of the body that cause the most joint pain are the hip, shoulder, knee, wrist, elbow, and ankle because they are somehow strained in almost every day to day activity. Our doctors specialize in the treatment of conditions specific to these joints and will evaluate you to determine a personalized course of treatment and injury specific injection components. Above are some of the common conditions that we can help treat! Knee pain is our specialty!
According to the CDC, more than 1 in 5 adults in the United States suffer from arthritis, or degeneration of joint space. Arthritis is a common medical condition that affects a total of 54 million patients each year and is only ONE of the many potential sources for joint pain. Knee pain alone affects roughly 25% of the adult population. Joint pain is caused by abnormal functioning of the cells that make up the cartilage, muscle, fat, or bone around the affected site.
What Are Your Options For Joint Pain?
Typical treatments for this kind of pain, both chronic and acute, include the use of NSAIDs (Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), narcotic pain-killers such as opioids, cortisone injections, and for the worst symptoms, total joint replacement surgery. There are side effects that come with each of these potential solutions to joint pain that typically greatly outweigh any that come from regenerative medicine. More info on that below.
What's Wrong With These Traditional Treatments For Joint Pain?
Although NSAIDs, opioid prescriptions, and cortisone injections provide adequate pain relief for its users, this relief only lasts for a few hours for NSAIDs and opioids and up to a few months for cortisone injections. The even bigger problem is that these treatments are only masking the pain rather than reaching the root cause of the problem. Over time, the constant use of these short-term solutions can cause the opposite of the intended effect and damage the joint instead of repair it.
Once these short-term relief treatments are deemed no longer effective, most orthopedic surgeons will tell you that total joint replacement surgery is the only way to treat your symptoms in the long-term. However, these procedures come with life-threatening risks and other negative aspects such as scarring, long recovery time, surgeon’s fee, anti-rejection medications, anesthesia complications, post-operative infection, etc…
How Can You Avoid Joint Replacement Surgery?
The field of regenerative medicine focuses on utilizing natural healing processes as a remedy for patients of all ages with a variety of medical conditions. Our Minneapolis Regenerative Medicine clinic knows that proper regenerative therapies can address the root cause of the problem, do not mask the pain, and utilize your body’s built-in repair system for a more natural way to address your body’s pain. Joint replacement surgery is not your only option. Whether its knee pain, arthritis, or a myriad of other conditions, regenerative therapy could help you overcome these issues naturally!
Acute injury, chronic pain, and age-related disease like arthritis can be debilitating and can completely alter a person’s life. However, regenerative medicine has given us hope that there may be an ending or at least a reduction in the percentage of adults with chronic pain. Over recent years, we have made great leaps in our ability to use structural tissue in a variety of different ways, most notably, to help regenerate tissue.
There are a variety of benefits of regenerative medicine may be able to provide you :
Eliminate pain – Our structural tissue matrix can help identify a location of degenerated tissue and directs and instructs other natural materials to repair that tissue. Rather than managing acute/chronic pain, we can eliminate it at the source. This allows your cartilage to regenerate, reducing pain until it is virtually unnoticeable.
Faster healing process – Growth factors included in our structural tissue matrix as well as the minimally-invasive nature of the treatment can help make the healing process faster. Traumatic incisions from knee, hip, or shoulder replacement take weeks or months to heal and are painful for the majority of that time. Â
Increase body capability – Degenerated tissue can be replaced with healthy tissue both within and around the joint. This added strength from new tissue will allow your body to perform at a higher level.
Decrease the risk of future injuries – Added strength from regenerated tissue may also allow the body to withstand greater trauma. Stronger muscles and tendons provide more support for the rest of the body and added growth factors may allow the joint to continue to redevelop.