When your joints hurt, life can be happy. Walking up and down the stairs can be a tedious task, removing the lid from a jar can be an overwhelming task, and even the prospect of going to bed is no comfort because you know you’ll be tossing and turning trying to get comfortable. Whether you have arthritis, muscle strain, tendon inflammation, or soft tissue sprains and tears, joint pain can disrupt your life.
There are many medications that provide temporary relief from joint pain, both over-the-counter and prescription. But let’s face it: No one wants to be forced into a life of taking pills and dealing with the effects of those drugs on the rest of your body. Muscle rubs and even physical therapy can help relieve some of the pain, and sometimes surgery is an option, but for most sufferers it seems like joint pain is just a condition they learn to live with.
Until now. There is a modern procedure that has shown some success in treating and treating joint pain and soft tissue injuries. Stem cell therapy involves taking healthy stem cells (your own or a donor) and injecting them directly into the affected area. The stem cells then regenerate, adapting to the specific needs for which they are intended.
The cells rebuild healthy tissue or bone, allowing the joints to heal. Patients have reported that osteoarthritis, tendonitis, and muscle and soft tissue pain have decreased or disappeared after stem cell therapy.Stem cell treatment is promising
Stem cell treatments are nothing new. Every day, in clinics around the world, stem cells are used in trials to test their viability as a treatment for spinal cord injury, treatment of advanced heart disease, reversal of neurodegenerative diseases and treatment of incurable diseases. It seems that these “supercells” are the future of medicine.
Stem cells have the unique ability to transform into any type of healthy cell necessary for the regeneration of damaged tissue and bones. Stem cell therapy illustrates the body’s ability to heal itself.
Stem cell therapy to treat joint pain
You’re probably wondering how regenerative stem cell therapy can help relieve joint pain. Without going into a biology lesson, let’s explain. The stem cells needed to build the structural cells needed for joint healing come from the bone marrow or fat of an adult. These stem cells regenerate the body’s structural cells, such as tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and even bones.
Once received from you or a donor, the stem cells are injected into a joint, such as the knee, shoulder, or elbow. The cells then begin working to heal the damaged joint. Researchers believe that in the case of osteoarthritis, stem cells act by turning into essential cartilage cells and releasing proteins that reduce pain and slow cartilage degeneration.The most useful stem cells for tissue engineering and implantation in the treatment of osteoarthritis are mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). They are usually limited to producing only mesoderm-specific cell types (adipocytes, osteoblasts, myocytes and chondrocytes), but some are capable of differentiating into other cell types. The trophic effects of MSCs include the secretion of bioactive molecules that are antiapoptotic, immunomodulatory, angiogenic, antiscarring, and/or chemoattractant.
The paracrine effects of MSCs can be divided into three types: trophic, immunomodulatory and chemoattractant.
Trophic effects stimulate predominantly neighboring parenchymal cells. These include inhibition of apoptosis and support of regeneration, stimulation, maintenance, proliferation and differentiation of tissue-specific precursors. Immunomodulatory aspects may include immunosuppressive effects and mediation of immunoactivity through direct cell-to-cell contact and secretion of bioactive molecules. Cells involved in the interactions may include dendritic cells, B cells, T cells, including T regulatory cells and T helper cells, and killer cells.
MSCs also secrete various chemoattractant molecules. These target cells such as monocytes, eosinophils, neutrophils, memory and naive T cells, B cells, natural killer cells, dendritic cells and endothelial cell progenitors.
MSCs are transmembrane proteins that play a critical role in the immune system by mediating inflammatory responses.
MSCs provide some important advantages over chondrocytes in the treatment of degenerative joint diseases. They are easier to culture, multiply faster, and can specialize into all joint tissues. Moreover, paracrine activity appears to be most useful in the treatment of osteoarthritis conditions. The anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties of MSCs play a key role in organizing the response to damaged joint tissue.Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) interact with immune cells and are responsible for modulating a number of functions, immunomodulatory properties, migratory abilities, inducing peripheral tolerance, inhibiting the release of proinflammatory cytokines and promoting tissue repair. .
The advantage of using MSCs for the treatment of osteoarthritis lies in their ability to differentiate into chondrocytes, as well as their ability to prevent chondrocyte apoptosis and prevent the general process of degeneration (due to a paracrine effect.
Variable use of MSCs with other formulations (PRP, exosomes, platelet mass, etc.) is also widely used. All conclusions on therapy are made only by the doctor, taking into account the patient’s medical history and its complications.
Taking into account the clinical experience in the use of stem cells and the biomaterials produced from them, we guarantee the success of this therapy up to 82% (statistics taken for the period 2020-2023 for all types of degenerative complications in the joints).