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REGENERATIVE PAIN MEDICINE
Regenerative Pain Medicine seeks to cure the causes of chronic musculoskeletal pain by reversing damage to and degeneration of connective tissue caused by major traumatic injuries and repetitive motion injuries. This is accomplished by injecting natural substances or one’s own blood platelets and tissue stem cells directly into the problem areas in order to regenerate healthy tissue.
Damaged and degenerated ligaments, tendons, muscles, and joints cause pain and dysfunction. Damaged and degenerated connective tissues have decreased blood flow, entrapped nerve ending, and accumulation of metabolic waste. The goal of Regenerative Pain Medicine is to restore health to these compromised tissues. Restoration of health to these tissues decreases or eliminates pain and normalizes function.
REGENERATIVE PAIN MEDICINE TREATS:
• Arthritis of any joint (except active autoimmune disease)
• Back Pain (from any cause except cancer or active autoimmune disease)
• Neck Pain/Headaches (except true hormonal headaches or fibromyalgia syndrome with no history of trauma)
• “Sports” Injuries (such as tendonitis/tendonosis, rotator cuff tear, ACL tear, torn meniscus, chronic ankle sprains, chronic shoulder dislocations, Achilles tendonosis, etc)
• Overuse Injuries (plantar fasciitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, texters/quilters thumb, TMJ syndrome, etc)
• Bone spurs
• Avascular Necrosis
REGENERATIVE PAIN MEDICINE DOES NOT TREAT:
• Cancer Pain
• Autoimmune Disease (active Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, etc)
• Fibromyalgia Syndrome with no history of trauma
• Nerve Pain Syndromes (except impingement syndromes such as carpal tunnel syndrome and piraformis syndrome/sciatica).
MORE ON HEALING
Healthy organisms are capable of healing themselves after injury. Injury to musculoskeletal structures triggers a critically important inflammatory pathway followed by a healing cascade. Anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen hinder this healing cascade. The majority of healing occurs in the first eight weeks after an injury. During this time the body produces growth factors in order to stimulate growth of new tissue. After this time, if healing is not complete there is a localized decrease blood flow, entrapment of nerve endings, and accumulation of metabolic waste. In essence, these tissues turn from normal connective tissue into scar tissue. As a direct result, nerve receptors in these tissues chronically fire pain signals. Sub-optimal healing leads to structures that do not have sufficient tensile strength (lax ligaments or joint capsules). Stretched ligaments are no longer able to stabilize their corresponding joint. This leads to muscle spasm in an attempt to stabilize joints and arthritis.
Arthritis, similarly, is degeneration of joint surface tissue secondary to macro or micro trauma.
Most chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions are due to degenerative processes, not inflammatory processes. Most back and neck pain is due to damaged, degenerated tissues, not herniated discs even if herniated discs are present.
For the most part, conventional management of musculoskeletal pain conditions involves palliative drug therapies until the condition becomes bad enough to warrant surgery. Arthroscopic surgery for arthritis has been definitively proven to not be effective long-term. Statistics for disc surgery for back/neck pain are dismal.
Alternative modalities such as chiropractic, massage, and acupuncture frequently are curative for mild to moderate conditions, but often only give a day or two of pain relief for advanced cases.
Those patients who are not truly good candidates for surgery and for whom alternative medicine has not been effective are often experience the best outcomes with Regenerative Pain Medicine.
Regenerative Pain Medicine’s principle interventions are RIT/Prolotherapy, Platelet Rich Plasma, and Adult Stem Cells. Because Regenerative Pain Medicine seeks to harness the body’s own healing abilities to cure the cause of pain, it is adherent to the philosophy of Naturopathic Medicine. |
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