Spine Pain Regenerative Medicine Options You Should Know
Are you suffering from spine pain and would like to set an appointment with a neurosurgeon? Not long ago, most patients who suffered from spine injury and pain had few treatment options. To make matters worse, these treatment options were not optimal, so patients had to live with the pain, trying to manage it. The pain medications came with a risk of addiction, or patients had to undergo surgery, which could cause permanent alterations or fail to remove the pain completely.
Luckily, regenerative medicine is now offering a healthier alternative treatment which enhances a body's capability to heal naturally. These treatment options have proven to be reliable in treating different types of chronic conditions and injuries, such as degenerative spinal conditions. Below are two main regenerative medicine options your neurosurgeon may recommend for the treatment of spine pain.
PRP (Platelet-Rich Plasma) Injection Therapy
Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy is an effective approach that can help accelerate the healing of injured tissue. The platelets are blood cells that promote clotting, an essential step in a body's regenerative healing procedure. When blood is extracted from a patient and placed in a centrifuge, the other blood cells can be separated to leave plasma with a higher concentration of the platelets (up to ten times the normal number). Once injected back in the injury area, the body's qualities of self-healing will be activated and improved, promoting quicker healing.
While PRP therapy is mostly linked with sports injuries like chronic wounds and osteoarthritis, this treatment option is also effective in reducing pain and enhancing the healing of spine osteoarthritis, sacroiliac joint pain and facet joint pain, among other degenerative conditions.
Stem Cell Therapy
The human body has non-specific cells capable of differentiating and becoming certain types of cells that can replace damaged tissue. These cells are known as stem cells. An example of large concentrations of stem cells in the body is the abdomen's adipose tissue. Through stem cell therapy, these cells can be extracted from the abdominal tissue, processed, and then re-injected into a patient at the injured site. Once this is done, the cells will start to replace the damaged or dead cells, hence accelerating the healing process.
This treatment option has shown to be great at treating both chronic and acute injuries, including other conditions linked with aging. A few examples include arthritis, chronic tendonitis, cartilage damage and ligament injuries. For spine patients, this therapy can treat degenerative disc illness by repairing and rehydrating damaged discs as a surgical procedure alternative.