Joint Pain
Joint pain can occur for many reasons. Causes may include degenerative arthritis, chronic inflammation, prior or ongoing injury (including prior surgery), rheumatoid arthritis, and even general wear and tear.
Why does wear and tear result in joint pain? Probably the best way to explain this is to explain this concept: when you were a newborn, your body had 1 stem cell for every 10,000 other cells in your body, with only about a 6- to 8-pound body needing coverage. These stem cells were abundantly present to not only heal and restore everyday wear and tear, but even injury to a great degree. By the time you reached the age of 30, you had 1 stem cell for every 100,000 stem cells spread out over the body, which might average 5 ft 4 inches (for a woman) or 5 ft 10 inches (for a man). You do the math for the weight. By the time you reach the age of 60, you have 1 stem cell for every 250,000 other cells in your body and a lot more wear and tear going on.
A large part of aging is simply the loss of stem cells, both in terms of counts and in terms of their functionality. Remember, all the health insults and compromises you have experienced, your stem cells have also experienced.
Placing stem cells into painful joints puts these stem cells into action. At Advocate Health Care, we utilize mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). These MSCs go into the tissues, acting like a general contractor to rally all the subs of your body (the muscles, nerves, cartilages, blood vessel support, and supportive tissues and fluids) to rebuild and regenerate. Many cases where imaging by MRI or CT or even direct surgical imaging had declared “bone on bone” have shown regeneration by the use of stem cells (where it was once thought that this meant the patient had no cartilage left to do the regenerating, stem cells caused re-growth of the lost tissues). For patients who have had surgeries, adding stem cells can shorten recovery time by 50% and improve the quality of healing.