Being laid up with an injury is never a good thing, and you’re worried about possible long-term complications from the damage. You want to do whatever it takes to heal quickly and strongly, getting you to the other side with the least amount of problems.
Time and patience are certainly key when it comes to musculoskeletal injuries, but at No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román is a big proponent of using all of the resources available, including some powerful regenerative cells in your own body — stem cells.
Here’s a review of why these cells are so effective in the healing process and a look at five injuries that can benefit from a powerful healing boost with stem cell therapy.
Stem cells are, arguably, the most important human cells as they provide the building blocks upon which all other cells are formed. When you were just an embryo, your stem cells are what formed every tissue and organ in your body.
As an adult, you still have stem cells in your body that help with regeneration and repair of damaged tissues because they have the amazing ability to become whatever cells are needed for the job.
To harvest these cells, we remove them from the marrow in your hip bone — stem cells are concentrated in bone marrow. Because the cells are your own, your body readily accepts them when we redirect them into damaged tissues.
We’re only scratching the surface here when it comes to the potential of stem cells to regenerate and repair tissues and organs in the body, but we’ve had some solid successes in using this method to help heal a wide range of musculoskeletal injuries, such as:
A torn anterior cruciate ligament is a common sports injury that involves one of the ligaments in your knee — the ACL accounts for about half of all knee injuries. These connective tissues provide stability in your knee, so they’re important if you want to remain active.
Each year in the United States, about 2 million people seek help for rotator cuff tears, which are very common shoulder injuries. Your rotator cuff is formed by a group of muscles that come together to form a tendon that attaches your arm to your shoulder.
Your Achilles tendon is the largest tendon in your body, and it attaches your heel bone to your calf muscles. When you rupture this tendon, either partially or completely, you can lose some function in your foot, making healing a top priority.
Your knees contain wedge-shaped pieces of cartilage called menisci, which provide shock absorption between the shin bone and thigh bone in your knee. This injury often occurs when you twist your knee.
A hamstring pull is one of the most common sports injuries. The hamstrings are muscles in the back of your thigh, and while we refer to it as a, “pull,” this injury usually involves tearing in the muscle, which can be very painful and debilitating.
Whether you’re dealing with a problem in a ligament, tendon, or muscle, we’ve had great success using stem cell therapy to help these connective tissues to knit back together and heal strongly.
If you’d like to learn more about whether stem cell therapy could help with your injury, we invite you to contact our office by calling 305-614-6757 or use our online messaging form to book an appointment.
