Baseball Coach with Knee Arthritis has Stem Cells
A 65-year-old professional baseball coach with arthritis of both knees consulted with Dr. Lox for knee stem cell therapy. He had heard about Dr. Lox from various sources, including his athletic trainer, a former baseball trainer, and a professional baseball player who treated with Dr. Lox. He is an avid sportsman and wants to keep golfing, playing baseball, travel, and outdoor sports. He is also adamant he does not want a total knee replacement surgery. Dr. Lox spent a lot of time with him discussing how to modify his activities to achieve the best results.
What is Knee Arthritis?
Many people become confused when the term knee arthritis is used. Equally, confusing is treatment options, including knee surgery that they think will help knee arthritis when in fact it does not. Typically knee arthritis refers to degenerative arthritis or osteoarthritis. This is not Rheumatoid Arthritis or any other autoimmune arthritis disorders. Degenerative knee arthritis is the most common type of arthritis, often described as wear and tear or arthritis associated with aging. It is actually more complex. Knee degenerative arthritis may develop at younger ages, especially when associated with trauma and after major knee surgery. Trauma and knee surgery accelerate the progression of knee arthritis, thus if trauma and subsequent knee surgery occur at a young age, knee degenerative arthritis occurs at younger ages. Therefore, it is not a correct assumption to refer to knee degenerative arthritis as a condition that not occurs in older ages.
What can Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine do?
This is an interesting, and important question. All too often, doctors prescribe treatments for degenerative arthritis that has no lasting or long term benefit to the treatment of degenerative arthritis. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications, cortisone injections, hyaluronic acid injections all do not alter the progression of degenerative arthritis. In other words, the degenerative cascade continues even if there is a temporary benefit. This provides the false belief that it helps. When in fact the arthritis process just continues. Time in this case is not your friend. Understanding how time and the aging process affects your joints is very important to begin to understand how to best treat it. Knowledge is important to make good choices in your lifestyle, sports activities, and what treatment such as stem cells, and Regenerative Medicine can offer. Stem cells are master regulators of the inflammatory cascade. They can actually turn off the feedback loop that keeps degenerative arthritis from progressing. If we can halt the progression, that is a great start, if then the stem cells can differentiate into a new cell line such as replace or rebuild damaged joint cartilage, we are helping our body to heal itself. This is like making the joint younger than it currently is. No one with degenerative arthritis will be a teenager again, it doesn’t work that way. But turning back the clock of time 5-10 years can potentially create a new set of circumstances when combined with proper activity, sports, and weight loss in some cases. This is how personalized medicine can be effective. Very few doctors take the time, or have the experience to know the factors which may be beneficial, and also detrimental to your progress. Dr. Lox has the experience, and practices with such an approach to make the best outcomes possible.
