ADVANCES IN SPORTS MEDICINE

Twenty-first-century medicine is pushing the frontiers of our imaginations. Doctors are finding new, non-invasive ways to help the body help itself repair. As these therapies become more and more mainstream (and accessible), what will be the next “outer limit?” It’s exciting to contemplate how we can work with the miraculous machine of the human body! Read on to learn about four innovative therapies that could help you if you’ve suffered a sports-related injury.

Within the hollows of your bones, your marrow is busy making red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and creating pluripotent stem cells. This type of stem cell has the ability to mature into different types of cells/tissues as needed (and commanded) by the body. By removing a patient’s own stem cells from their bone marrow and injecting them into an injured joint, doctors are able to put stem cells to work directly at the point where they are needed.

The first clinic to offer stem cell-based musculoskeletal therapy in the United States is run by Chris Centeno, MD, an international expert and specialist in regenerative medicine, and John Schultz, MD, an interventional pain management specialist, who is the co-medical director with Centeno of the Centeno-Schultz Medical Center in Broomfield, Colorado (near Boulder). These two doctors have been pushing the envelope in their work, injecting stem cells so they transform themselves into cartilage to repair knee and hip joints along with repairing tendon/ligament damage for common rotator cuff injuries in the shoulder joint. Dr. Centeno said, “[We are] doing through injection what used to be done with surgery.” This exciting new therapy precludes surgery and helps you skip out on a lengthy and painful rehab program. In fact, patients are often back in the swing of things in just days!

If you are an extreme athlete or just a klutzy one, you might also consider banking your stem cells. When you are healthy and strong, you can have your stem cells removed, preserved and banked for when you need them. You can do more research to find out if you are a candidate for stem cell therapy instead of joint replacement and download a free copy of Dr. Centeno’s treatise, Orthopedics 2.0: How Regenerative Medicine Will Create the New Generation of Non-Invasive Medicine, at CentenoSchultz.com.

Ligaments and tendons help your joints bend, flex and maintain their strong support. Ligaments work with your muscles and tendons work with your bones. Ligaments are like licorice ropes; you can stretch them, but when you do, they will never return to their original shape or provide the stabilization for a joint as they are designed to do. If you’ve been out there giving it your all, you might have gone too far! Prolotherapy, a non-surgical ligament and tendon reconstruction therapy that encourages the growth of new tissue, may be an option for you, especially if you are prone to a repetitive action type of injuries.

Doctors using prolotherapy inject a dextrose solution into the problem ligaments or tendons. This causes the body to use its own defense system to begin healing; it creates a manageable amount of inflammation in the weakened area so that the body begins generating new tissue to repair or replace the weakened ligament or tendon. The injection also increases the blood supply to the area so that there are more nutrients and oxygen flowing to the site to stimulate repair and reduce pain.

Generally, treatment requires a course of four to six injections for success. David Tanton, PhD, a holistic nutritionist and part of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (DrTanton.com), is a nationally-respected researcher in natural health. He notes, “There’s even a new form of prolotherapy being used called Prolozine. By combining ozone therapy with prolotherapy, you can achieve better results than with prolotherapy alone!”

If you are looking for a doctor practicing prolotherapy, visit GetProlo.com.

If you ever suffered with tennis elbow or plantar fasciitis, you understand the searing, hot-poker feeling of pain from tendonitis or bursitis. Tendons and bursa become inflamed, but they can easily be treated without the traditional immobilization of a joint – which usually lead to muscle imbalance and wasting – using a concentration of your own blood’s platelets. Using a centrifuge, doctors who do Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) distill your blood platelets. By filtering and concentrating your blood, the physician increases platelets and growth factors by about 400 percent. 

Next the doctor injects your own richly concentrated plasma into the damaged or non-healing area. This stimulates the joint’s own growth factors and sends out signals to your body’s other cells to bring on the healing. After PRP, new collagen begins to develop, tissues start to heal at a rapid pace, bone regenerates and repairs, new blood vessels begin to feed the afflicted area and wound healing becomes turbo charged. 

   

A survey published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine showed more than 90 percent of the patients surveyed a year after PRP were “completely satisfied” with the results of their treatment. PRP has been used in Europe for years for sports injuries and in the United States by orthodontists looking to increase bone mass for tooth implants. Cardiac surgeons are even using PRP to regenerate heart tissue, but this is purely experimental right now.

   

Dr. Centeno, who also uses PRP at his Colorado clinic for advanced regenerative medicine, said, “We use PRP to treat mild joint arthritis and smaller tears in the knee meniscus, labrum, tendons and ligaments. These injections work well for those applications and allow patients to remain active while they use their body’s own resources to heal and avoid surgery.”

PRP helps the body heal itself with minimal or no scarring and stops further degeneration of the tissue. So, if you have a sprain, strain, pull or tear, PRP may be a safe alternative for your sports injury.

For many years, cartilage damage meant steroid injections and arthroscopy, but these only held the degeneration of a joint at bay. Some orthopedic doctors tried creating impermanent implants but the technique didn’t really catch on.

Now researchers have found a way to grow cartilage from your own tissue or to use some from a donor. In a specialized laboratory, harvested cartilage is used to create millions of new cells. Your doctor then removes your defective cartilage and covers the new gap with a special patch of periosteum, which is the thin connective tissue that is a sheath around your bones. The freshly grown cartilage is implanted under the patch where it grows and becomes a natural part of your tissue.

“For a long time, surgeons have been looking for an alternative to joint replacement that is more effective than simply cleaning out the joint arthroscopically,” said orthopedic surgeon Brian Cole, MD, of Rush University Medical Center in Illinois. They were also frustrated by traditional plastic or metal implants that often wore out and never addressed the cartilage’s true problem, causing degeneration. Now by implanting your own “farmed” cartilage (or that from a donor), you can actually treat the affected joint and not just put a temporary fix in place.

Recovery time can take up to a year, but many physicians are seeing success rates as high as 90 percent in their practice. So, forget the implants! Use your own cartilage to regrow and regenerate your joints. MS&F