Our Services
Stem Cell Therapy
Stem cells from one’s own body, specifically mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), have been called “patient-specific drug stores for injured tissues” because of their broad range of healing abilities. MSCs are directly responsible for healing damaged tissues after injury. Upon encountering damaged tissue, they release proteins that decrease inflammation, kill invading microbes, and trigger the growth of new connective tissues and blood vessels.
When we take MSCs from your own bone marrow or from your own fat and then inject them directly into your problem area, what we think is happening is that we ‘trick’ your body into thinking that there has been a new injury without actually causing any tissue insult, and you get a second chance at healing. This concept has not be scientifically validated, but after ten years of clinical experience, this is what we think is happening.
Please note – this website and the videos found on it may contain discussions of procedures no longer performed by Docere Clinics due to changes in the regulatory environment. Any results shared on this website and the videos found on it do not reflect the results or experiences of every patient. Results may vary based upon patient age, medical history and other factors, including the possibility of no improvement. We are in the process of phasing out the use of adipose-derived stem cells.
While stem cell therapy shows promise in the rapidly growing body of scientific data, it has not been scientifically proven to be effective.
Based on full-time stem cell therapy experience since 2010 and regenerative medicine experience since 2002, we are very careful to only treat patients that we think we have a chance of helping. Namely; patients who are in overall good health who suffer from chronic pain caused by damaged or degenerated musculoskeletal tissues (such as joints, spine, or ligaments), that is not “too far gone”. We do not treat any systemic disease at all. While we have helped many people, there are people we have treated that we have not helped at all. Our experience is that overall, we help more people than we don’t help, but there is nothing about stem cell therapy that is either a “miracle” or a “cure”.
Click Here to Read a Meta-Analysis (Review of All Scientific Literature) of Stem Cells for Knee Arthritis
Click Here to Read A Meta-Analysis (Review Of All Scientific Literature) of Stem Cells for Spine And Disc Pain”
Conditions We Are Investigating
Osteoarthritis of any joint
Back Pain (defenerated/dehydrated discs, stenosis, facet arthrosis, SI syndrome, sciatica, etc)
Neck Pain
Headaches (except true hormonal migraines)
Sports Injuries (tennis elbow, rotator cuff tear, ACL tear, torn meniscus, chronic ankle sprains, Achilles tendonitis, chronic subluxation/dislocation of shoulder, town labrum of shoulder or hip, etc)
Overuse Syndrome (plantar fasciitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, texters/quilters thumb, TMJ syndrome, etc)
Avascular Necrosis
Non-Union Fracture
Conditions We Do Not Treat
Cancer
Spinal Cord Injury
Autism
Systemic disease (neurological, cardiovascular, pulmonary, autoimmune, etcetera)
BONE MARROW ASPIRATE CONCENTRATE (BMAC)
Bone marrow is rich in growth factors and stem cells. It is important to understand that bone marrow harvesting for BMAC is vastly simpler than bone marrow harvesting for transfusion for cancer therapies. For our purposes, BMAC requires a relatively small amount of bone marrow from a single puncture site.
The procedure has an excellent safety profile. We have performed over 6,000 of them without a single adverse outcome. It’s far less painful than one would think, takes under ten minutes, and causes only mild soreness afterward that lasts only a few days. Please note, our anesthesiologist sedate our patients, so they sleep through the entire experience.
Very Small Embryonic-Like Stem Cells (VSELs)
Very Small Embryonic-Like stem cells (VSELs) are rare, early- development stem cells found in adult tissues. They are not as primitive and unstable as the controversial (and illegal) embryonic stem cells, yet are also believed to be able to differentiate into other cells. Additionally, VSELs release telomerase, the enzyme that helps to keep the telomeres longer over time.
ADIPOSE-DERIVED STEM CELLS (ADSC)
Fat harvesting for ADSC therapy is done with a very simple process called lipoaspiration. It is important to understand that lipoaspiration is vastly different from liposuction. Liposuction is performed by a plastic surgeon, and up to 6,000mL (6 liters) of fat is removed for a cosmetic result. In contrast, lipoaspiration uses only a small amount of local anesthetic and a small instrument slightly larger than a hypodermic needle to remove 1/100 of that amount (60mL). The entire process takes around 15 minutes. Our anesthesiologists sedate our patients, so they sleep through the entire experience.
PLEASE NOTE – Due to recent developments in the regulatory environment, we are currently phasing out our use of adipose-derived stem cells.
Click here to read an overview article on adipose-derived stem cells.
EXTRACELLULAR VESICLES
Extracellular Vessicles (aka nanoparticles) are the key growth factors derived from placental mesenchymal stem cells, that have been separated from the stem cells that produced them (hence, without other people’s DNA). Extracellular Vesicles are the very active ingredient of stem cells that are responsible for their ability to trigger healing in damaged tissue they encounter. As we age, what makes our own stem cells “old” is that they lose the ability to manufacture and excrete these very extracellular vesicles. The extracellular vesicle products we use at Docere Clinics do NOT contain stem cells, and as such, do not contain genetic material (DNA) from someone else.
PLEASE NOTE – We only use extracellular vesicles topically, combined with microneedling (depth of approximately 2.5mm), we no longer use extracellular vesicles in injections or IV.
Which Option Is Best For You?
At Docere Clinics, we customize the treatments of each individual patient.
Please call to speak with our staff and schedule a consultation to learn more.
to read a manuscript written by Dr. Adelson published in The Pain Practitioner describing his experience comparing bone marrow stem cells, adipose stem cells, and the use of the two. Clearly, if you have too little subcutaneous fat to consider lipoaspiration, then ADSC is not an option and we will opt instead for BMAC alone. If you have a history of bone or blood cancer, we opt for ADSC suspended in platelet-rich plasma.
to read a manuscript written by Dr. Adelson published in The Pain Practitioner describing his experience treating low back and lumbar disc pain with ADSC with BMAC.
Download a scientific overview of Adult Stem Cell Therapy, written by Arnold Caplan, Ph.D., the scientist who first described mesenchymal stem cell function in 1988.
Additional Information
These podcasts with Dave Asprey of Bulletproof Radio will answer any remaining questions you may have:
