INTRODUCTION

Currently, over 40 million people in the United States suffer arthritis and joint pain.  Traditional approaches to the treatment of joint pain and arthritis include prescription painkillers, joint replacement surgery, and steroid shots.  The United States is currently spending billions of dollars to treat chronic pain, but one must ask:  To what end?  Particularly when studies show that more than 25 million Americans are still reporting severe levels of pain due to the failure of traditional approaches to offer lasting relief. 

Recent reports from the CDC further indicate that – each year – Americans are undergoing hundreds of thousands of joint replacement surgeries and spinal surgeries.  Again, one is tempted to ask:  To what result?  Especially when a recent study reported by the New Yorker showed that 72% of Americans who received one spinal surgery went on to receive a second surgery – due to the failure of the first surgery to fix the problem.

An overview of how arthritis works helps to explain why traditional remedies often fail.  Most Americans are suffering from a type of arthritis known as osteo-arthritis or “OA.”  In this particular type of arthritis, the joint’s natural cushion known as cartilage has become defective and started to wear away – similar to when the rubber on a car tire starts to wear thin.  If the source of the problem is the erosion of the body’s natural cushion, one can see how neither drugs nor surgery will truly address the problem – since none of these so-called remedies can actually replace the body’s missing cushion. 

Regenerative medicine provides a different approach to the treatment of joint pain and arthritis.  In contrast to simply masking the joint pain with pills – or removing the person’s joint and replacing it with metal parts – regenerative medicine focuses on restoring the person’s own joint through the insertion of stem cells into the body.  Simply defined, stem cells are undifferentiated cells – basically, blank slates – that are capable of developing into many other cell types – such as skin, muscle, nerve, or cartilage cells. 

THE THREE TYPES OF STEM CELLS

There are three sources of stem cells in the world today:  embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, and human amniotic membrane/umbilical cord-derived stem cells.  In 1996, by way of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, Congress banned federal funding for research on embryos, and President Bush in subsequent years repeatedly vetoed funding for research that involved destruction of human embryos.  As a result, stem cells from embryonic sources such as abortions are not currently commercially available in the United States.

In light of the unavailability of embryonic stem cells, many doctors began performing regenerative medicine treatments involving adult stem cells.  Adult stem cells were typically harvested from fatty tissue or bone marrow extracted from the patient’s own body.  However, because the prevalence of stem cells in a senior citizen’s body is so incredibly low when compared to the level of stem cells in a young person, doctors who removed stem cells from an adult person’s body were typically then forced to add growth agents to the stem cell mixture – in order to cause the stem cells to multiply to a sufficient level to be able to cause a result in the patient’s worn out joint.  Unfortunately, in February of 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that adding growth factors and antibiotics to adult’s own stem cells violated appropriate protocols.  As a result of this ruling, doctors cannot legally add these growth agents to adult stem cells extracted from a patient’s body to encourage the stem cells to multiply – which is why many adult stem cell centers previously performing such treatments in America are now sending their patients to off-shore clinics in the South America or Asia.   

THE PREFERRED APPROACH:  PLACENTAL-AMNIOTIC -UMBILICAL STEM CELL THERAPY

Recent barriers in the United States to embryonic and adult stem cell therapy caused a renewal in focus on stem cells derived from human amniotic placental tissue and umbilical cord.  Unlike embryonic sources, these stem cells are harvested from the placentas and umbilical cords of consenting mothers who are scheduled for a caesarian or “c-section” delivery.  The placenta is the flat, circular organ that develops during pregnancy to nourish and feed the baby.  Once the baby is delivered, the placenta is also delivered.  Accordingly, if the mother does not donate her placenta and umbilical cord during the c-section, the hospital simply discards the organ as waste.  For this reason, stem cells derived from placental and umbilical sources simply do not pose religious and ethical concerns.  Not only are the placenta and umbilical cord rich sources of incredibly potent stem cells, they also provide other naturally occurring growth factors that can aid in the regeneration of damaged tissues. 

If you are interested in non-surgical treatment options for healthy living, please email us at PacificStemCell@gmail.com or call/text (949) 232-0304.

REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

For many patients with debilitating osteoarthritis, treatment options are limited:  steroid injections, joint replacement surgery, pain pills, or doing platelet rich plasma (“PRP”) or hyaluronic acid injections.  When reviewing the outcomes of the foregoing, we see that pain pills aren’t effective at all at addressing the cause of the pain and simply mask it while potentially leading to addictive or toxic effects, while a 2018 Harvard study concluded that steroid shots into hip joints caused nearly ¼ of those injected to suffer bone death in the months after the steroid was injected, and finally a recent meta-analysis of PRP study concluded that PRP was “no better than placebo” in terms of patient outcomes.

At Pacific Medicine, new cutting-edge treatment options like amniotic membrane stem cell injections may be used to successfully treat patients with osteoarthritis, achilles tendonitis, rotator cuff issues, ligament or meniscus tears in the knee, and more.

If you are interested in top-shelf healthcare from medical professionals who have treated sports enthusiasts, former pro-ball players and senior citizens alike with great success, Pacific Medicine is your answer:  we are a Utah-based company of health professionals that have a combined 46 years’ of experience in treating degenerative joint conditions using holistic and minimally-invasive techniques, which techniques address the root cause of the issue – allowing patients to get back to the business of living their best lives.  

If you are interested in learning more about regenerative medicine, please email us at PacificStemCell@gmail.com or call/text (949) 232-0304.