Stem cells have been used in modern conventional medicine for 65 years. It just went by another name, bone marrow transplant. Think about it, a bone marrow transplant is simply a low dose stem cell procedure. It has been approved and is used for about 10 different types of cancer, so they know it works. So what’s holding it back from more widespread use? Money!
You see, stem cells cannot be patented, nor can exosomes that are derived from stem cells. Therefore, there is little to no economic incentive for any large pharmaceutical company to take them through the $1 billion plus approval process to get it approved for each application.
Thankfully, we are now allowed to use them; however, no claims can be made since they are not technically approved for any specific applications other than cancer. As a result, hundreds of stem cell clinics have popped up over the past five plus years. The problem is that very few of those practicing this specialty have been fully trained in a technique called prolotherapy. Prolotherapy is the original regenerative injection therapy, first published in 1937, with a couple of hundred additional studies showing its efficacy.
The basic idea of prolotherapy is to go to what’s called the anthesis, which is where either ligament or tendon connects to the bone, and apply a small amount of stimulant/irritant. Why would this be necessary? It’s simple that tendons and ligaments are very dense and have poor blood supply; therefore, when they are injured, they virtually never heal back to full strength. The research shows that they will typically come back to 50 to 80% of the original strength in a little longer than they were. That means that that particular joint is not as stable as it used to be. This information is picked up by the nerve sensors in the joint and sent to the brain. The brain does the only thing it can to help the situation: it makes all the surrounding muscles tighten up. It’s your body’s way of trying to protect the joint. The problem is that muscles are not designed to stay in a steady state of partial contraction. When they do so, do the muscles get thick and dense enough to restrict blood flow into and out of the area? Why is that important? Muscles need oxygen and nutrients to function effectively. When their blood flow is reduced, there will inevitably be a limitation of those nutrients and oxygen getting to the individual muscle cells. This invariably leads to several muscle fibers shifting into anaerobic metabolism versus aerobic metabolism, aerobic is with oxygen, and anaerobic is without oxygen. Unfortunately, anabolic metabolism is very inefficient; it is only able to ferment sugar to make ATP at the rate of just two ATP per molecule of glucose. Those same muscle fibers, if they get sufficient oxygen, can produce 36 ATP molecules per molecule of glucose. So, in essence, anaerobic metabolism is grossly inefficient and producing energy and therefore maintaining the muscle in its proper condition. An additional byproduct of this anaerobic metabolism is the generation of lactic acid. Now this lactic acid will tend to pool in the surrounding muscle tissue because blood flow is reduced, thereby restricting elimination and drainage of those toxins from the area. Interestingly, this impact on the muscles that the trigger points form is the biggest contributing factor to pain, inflammation, and degeneration of the joint.
Regenerative injection therapies are designed to stimulate this repair process by tricking the body into thinking there’s a new injury. This reactivates the healing process and, if done enough, will help that structure to be restored to full strength and function. Again, this happens primarily at the anthesis, which is the junction of either a tendon or ligament in bone. So, it is 2 dissimilar tissues joining together where most of the stress and damage takes place when we injure a joint.
Prolotherapy has been the foundation of regenerative injection therapy for almost 100 years. The first study was published in 1937, with a couple of hundred additional studies since, all demonstrating 90 to 95% effectiveness at restoring joint integrity and function.
The problem is that very few doctors have been properly trained in this technique. It takes several months, if not years, to become proficient at this technique I. I call it precise placement prolotherapy because the placement of the solution has to be very precise. The technique is not taught in any medical schools and is only done through mentorships or weekend courses. For most people, it will take a year or more to become reasonably proficient in the technique if they in fact have a good mentor or attend multiple courses.
Very few of the health practitioners who perform stem cell, exosome, or PRP procedures have been trained in precise placement prolotherapy. Most have simply gone to a single two day conference training or learned online. The amazing thing is that even with questionable technique, stem cells, exosomes, and PRP can produce good results. However, it works much better when done via the precise placement prolotherapy technique.
The things that make our approach unique to the repair of damaged joints using regenerative injection therapy are the following. First, instead of trying to hit a home run with a single injection session, we spread it out over several sessions. There are several reasons for this, the primary one being that our bodies only have a certain degree of healing capacity in a given amount of time. By figuring out how many stem cells and or exosomes, etc., need to be used and then spreading that out over several sessions were able to utilize what I refer to as singles and double s to stimulate the repair process. We don’t stop there; we then support the healing process with several specific therapies, a series of nutrients, and a home light therapy device.
I’ve personally been doing regenerative injection therapy as prolotherapy for just over 30 years. About 6 or 7 years ago, I began adding either stem cells or exosomes to that procedure. I only did so after it became legal to utilize umbilical cord derived stem cells. Before that, you either had to harvest them from bone marrow or fat tissue. The problem with that is that they just don’t work as well. Most people having the procedures done are in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond, so their stem cells are fifty years older and therefore do not work as well as a young, fresh umbilical cord derived stem cell.
The research tells us that an umbilical drives itself will technically replicate about every 24 hours, and it will create a daughter cell and a new tissue cell. On the other hand, someone who’s 60 years old, their stem cells will only duplicate every 60 hours. Now, if you do the math and double the cell every 24 hours for 30 days, you have a billion cells working on the problem. If you take an older stem cell, activate it, and it replicates every 60 hours for 30 days, you have 4000 cells. Which do you think is going to work better?
Additionally, as wonderful as stem cells and exosomes are, they need all of the crucial, vital nutrients that your body requires to heal and regenerate. We know that most people are deficient in at least a few vital nutrients. So, we make sure that those nutrients are included along with our program.
Another important point is that injecting stem cells or exosomes into an area may not be sufficient to activate the healing cascade. Again, stem cells and extremes are amazing, but they need direction sometimes; it takes more than just putting them in the general area. For that reason, we utilize precise placement prolotherapy along with our stem cell and exosome procedures. This serves to red flag the damaged area by creating a locally controlled inflammatory process that is the initiation of healing and repair. Then we add the stem cells and or exosomes to maximize their impact and results.
Those are some of the things that set our approach apart from what everyone else is doing.