The doctors at NJ Pain Care Specialists are excited about the possibilities offered by stem cell therapy – a simple, non-invasive procedure we use to treat a wide variety of pain issues: tennis elbow, shoulder pain, knee pain, osteoarthritis of joints, minor muscle tears, sports and overuse injuries.
(During the procedure our experienced physicians harvest stem cells from the millions that live in your body. The cells are extracted from Adipose tissue – the fat in your “love handles” – or abdomen, which is why this relatively new and effective treatment is called “Adipose Stem Cell Therapy.” The cells are processed and then injected into your problem area, where they reproduce quickly and have the ability to restore and repair injured tissue and joints.)
Now, the enthusiasm for stem cell therapy is rising: Researchers at Duke University are testing advanced cell-based therapies for chronic pain conditions, lower back pain and spinal cord injuries that may provide relief for as long as five weeks.
Many people suffering from chronic pain caused by the nerve damage from type 2 diabetes, surgical amputation, chemotherapy and other conditions find that existing painkillers have little or only short term effect.
“Normally, if you give an analgesic, you see pain relief for a few hours, at most a few days,” according to Professor Ru-Rong Ji at the Duke School of Medicine. “But with the bone marrow stem cells we’re testing, after a single injection we saw pain relief over four to five weeks. Based on these new results, we have the know-how and we can further engineer and improve the cells to maximize their beneficial effects.”
The Duke University study found the stem cell therapy relieved pain in lab mice caused by nerve damage. It used a type of stem cell known as bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs), which have produced a range of healing factors and can be coaxed into forming most other types of cells in the body. Mice treated with the BMSCs were much less sensitive to painful stimuli after their nerve injury compared with the untreated mice. With just one injection the researchers witnessed pain relief lasting for 4 to 5 weeks,
BMSCs are currently being tested in small-scale clinical studies of people with inflammatory bowel disease, heart damage and stroke. “I believe cell therapy such as the stem cell therapy is the future of long-term pain relief,” Prof. Ji told the media.
And those of us at NJ Pain Care Specialists look forward to bringing every advance in pain management to our patients.
Contact our offices to see how stem cell procedures currently performed at NJPCS can provide relief that can change your life now.
At the present time, Stem Cell Therapy is not covered by medical insurance.
