Regenexx injections - Stem Cells

[mccartjt]

Hi All

A little update on my condition. I got a third PRP on the 18th of January for my left knee. I had been using a treadmill I had in my house every other day and run/walking 3 miles per day. Then my treadmill broke and I've been in Las Vegas on a trade show with very little time to workout or run. I managed today to get a 3 mile walk / run in on a local school running track and 2 hours later my knee hasn't any pain at all. I think that the treadmill I have feels like its easier than actually getting on a foam running track.

On the running side of things I am now running around a track that has a football field in the center of the running track. So what I've been able to do is walk the semi circles at the ends of the track and run as hard as I can the long 100+ yard legs of the lenght of the football field. I have a lovely feeling as I relax here on a couch on a Saturday afternoon!

My bulging disc  (L5/S1) has been sore from time to time but I've found that running actually helps take away the pain! Oh and let me tell you all the pain was wicked last September. Dr Centeno gave me a Platelet Lysate/Dexamethazone epidural for that too in September and my life has been liveable since. The more running (within reason) I do the better I feel!

I hope this blog helps people I know Dr Centeno has certainly helped me!

JM

[rob8647932]

Went to see Dr. Centeno (Regenexx) yesterday. After telling him that my left knee pain started after having my piriformis muslce (buttocks) removed, he immediatlely thought that some of my pain was due to quad and VMO muscle trigger points and tightness. He did some intramuscular needling that goes deep into the muscle. I did have many trigger points in these areas and my knee pain was immediately less. He recommended this IMS needling, rolfing, and myofascial release. Unfortunately we only have the myofascial release in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Hopefully this will loosen my quad and VMO knee muscles and stop the knee arthritis from being aggravated. Even if I have the scope surgery it will not eliminate the tight muslces so I have to address the muscle issue first and see where I end up before any scope.

[mickeyj]

Hi! I am thinking of getting these injections soon  if I am a candidate.Is there anyone with severe OA of the knee that can give me some info.I have bone on bone severe 4th stage OA and walk with a cane,but am in good shape, can ride a bike and swim,just very painfull to walk.Would like to hear from someone who has a similar OA knee problem and has had the Regenexx procedure. Thanks.
mickeyj

[Lottiefox]

Hi there

I too am considering Regenexx and have found Dr Ceneteno to be extremely professional and helpful in considering my case. He has reviewed my MRI scans and OS reports and provided an opinion on the potential for Regenexx to help. I am not bone on bone but do have significant patella wear and a small medial condyle lesion. If you go back through this thread you will find some posts from a member called Saverio who had the injections and I believe he was at the bone on bone stage and had been recommended for a TKR in both knees. There are also other stories and more feedback from people who have been through the process. Only the clinic can comment on your actual suitability however as clearly we all have different knee histories. My feeling is that it may be worth a try as it has less of the risks associated with a failing surgery, and stem cell research is developing all of the time. Alternatively I am exploring surgery that combines stem cells with a procedure, to get the best of both worlds.

Good luck with your decision

Lottie 

[pvr]

I am 35-year-old male with good health conditions no medications or health issues.

I had most of my meniscus removed from a surgery 6 years ago, a year ago pain started and had another partial meniscectomy. After two months of the second surgery, pain started again in the knee. If I go to the surgeon I know I would loose my meniscus totally, I started reading about the PRP, prolotherapy and Regenexx procedure.

After much thinking and reading and taking to friends I finally arranged money for Regenexx procedure. I had my Merrow draw in third week of February,2010.

During the time of draw Dr. John Schultz evaluated my MRI very well and identified the MCL needs some treatment and then treat the cartlage and meniscus. Dr. John Schultz done little of acupuncture to relieve the stiffness in muscles, which worked very well, and prolotherapy to tighten the knee, which really helped me a lot. He is very confident in his work and analyzed my knee very well. I felt that the knee reacted good for the prolotherapy and I don't need the bandage for the knee until few days ago where the pain started increasing.

I was very hopeful about the re-injections, I got the BAD NEWS from Dr. John Schultz after three weeks that the culture failed and there are no stemcells to reinject. They have a QA on the cells before the culture. I have been waiting for three weeks for the correct answer why it failed and the next course of treatment. There is no response to the few emails I sent, either by the Centeno-schultz clinic nor Dr. Schultz it self.

I volunteered my self to Dr. Schultz that I will do any kind of blood test to see if there is some thing wrong with me, He said there is nothing needed at this time. How would I know, if some thing happened in the storage and culture resulting in the failure? or if there is some thing which is unknown in my blood/stem cells resulting in the failure. I have no answers to the above questions, I am really hopeless right now and pain in my knee increasing day by day.

I spend around $5000 for initial evaluation, marrow draw, registrations, air travel etc. till now and disappointed waiting for a response from Centeno-schultz clinic. I want to tell to the people that being in good health doesn't guarantee the positive results, there may be unknown which may result in failure. I am not saying any thing negative about the Centeno-schultz clinic because I still believe in their procedure and we have so many other people on the forum writing about their response.

I will update my status when any thing changes.

Contrats to the people who got the Regenexx injections and recovering.

[Dr. Centeno]

pvr,

Sorry to hear about your culture failure.  Mesenchymal stem cells are generally very finicky cells, and if you look at the research about 10-20% of the time, there will be a failure of the cells to grow.  Through years of experience growing cells, having our patients get off certain medications we know are bad for cells, and other tricks, we've generally reduced that to 5% or less.  Most culture failures are in high risk groups such as the very old, patients on certain perscription medications, peri-menopausal women, and patients with certain blood serum abnormalities, etc...   We also offer patients a shared risk option where you can pay a little more for the first draw and get up to three draws for about the price of 1 1/2.  Dr. Schultz can comment on the specifics below.

Dr. Centeno

[MSC]

PVR,
Hi this is Dr. Schultz.  I too was disappointed about your culture results.  I am confused as to your post dated March 19.  I did response both by e-mail and telephone regarding possible explainations for your culture results.  In a different but recent e-mail I outlined discussed treatment options.  You responded to my e-mail, thanking me for the encouragement and describing your current clinical condition 5 hours prior to your post on kneeguru. ?

In fairness to others please review your first sentence.

We have treatment options to help you with your ongoing pain.

I am committed to getting you better.

JRS

[pvr]

Update from me,

After the last email on March 3rd, Dr. John Schultz wrote me back on March 19th. afternoon.

He said that he is still looking for a solution, he has other options but needs IRB approval. I will be patiently waiting for his next email. I am very eager to know what would be other alternatives. Hopefully that will work and relieve me from the pain in my knee.

Update 10:42 PM EST

Dr. John Schultz, Nice to see you in the forum as well as Dr. Centeno, Thank you very much for your responses.
 
Going to the specifics of the dates, I received the culture failure news on March 1st and until March 3rd, Dr. John Schultz was in touch discussing about the possible reasons, We exchanged few emails every day and he is very response.
What I wrote is "I have been waiting for three weeks for the correct answer why it failed", i.e after 3rd of march. One of the possible reason which we discussed on 3rd of march is having a elevated triglycerides which I have(I should have specified this in my original post).

Dr. John Schultz, the timings which were listed on the forum are UK timings/server timings(5 hrs ahead of US EST timings), I made my original posting on this forum around 2:00 PM EST  on 19th. I got your email at 3:25 PM EST on 19th. I responded at 5:09 PM EST on 19th.

From the past few hours I exchanged few emails with Dr. John Schultz, which he said that the failure of the culture is most likely due to the condition of my elevated triglycerides, which is based on the clinical Experience.

To all, I want to make a point, that there is still unknown in the stem cell culture and the rate of success you can have may vary. The reason I went to Centeno-Schultz cllinic was because they have the wast experience and been in this field from so many years, But still there is unknown factor.

Dr. John Schultz is still committed to treating my condition, I do still believe that the stem cell is the only solution instead of the surgery, I will continue to work with Dr. John Schultz until it is feasible for me.

I will update in the forum if there are any updates.

[Dr. Centeno]

No doubt there are unknowns, as there are in most new medical procedures.  We do have more experience with this procedure than anywhere else in the world, but we still learn new things about applying this procedure to patients.  In particular, the elevated triglycerides issue does appear to be significant and we've only now seen it in enough of our >450 patients and about 1,000 culture expansions to strat seeing a good statistical trends. 

[Scooter72]

No doubt there are unknowns, as there are in most new medical procedures.  We do have more experience with this procedure than anywhere else in the world, but we still learn new things about applying this procedure to patients.  In particular, the elevated triglycerides issue does appear to be significant and we've only now seen it in enough of our >450 patients and about 1,000 culture expansions to strat seeing a good statistical trends. 

Let me preface by saying, I am not asking for a diagnosis here.

Dr. Centeno, I am a person who has had microfracture surgery approximately one-year ago, in the trochlear groove of the lateral femoral condyle.  My lesion was VERY large; I believe it exceeded four centimeters in length.  I am currently playing football (which really is a minor miracle), albeit I have discomfort after every match.  Supartz shots do not provide long-term relief.  I anticipate that with my level of activity, playing football 2x/week and lifting weights ~2 hours/week total, the microfracture will eventually "fail", given the nature of what it is.

What kind of success have you had in your clinic, for patients with previous microfracture surgeries?  I am very interested to hear from you, despite the general negative rantings that two ortho friends of mine have given your technique.  I am in the molecular biological sciences, so I understand everything about your procedure down to that level.  I have to admit, on paper, it seems sound, however (as my friends have iterated), practice usually differs. 

ps- Please don't take my mentioning other ortho's negative feelings, as an insult.  I just wanted to highlight that I am examining the clinical aspect.  And besides, I am sure you are used to the intense skepticism.

[Cstein]

I am going in for an MRI that I will be sending to Dr. Centeno so I can start my review process.

My last MRI showed 1cm moderate chondromalacia and a 7mm intra-articular osteophyte. This all occured in the rehab period post oats procedure.

I see alot of you are mentioning arthritis and "bone on bone" but do any of you have any bone spurs/ osteophyte developments?

I may have a dissecan where the chondromalacia was and I'm trying to decide whether I should have another arthroscopy to remove the loose fragment cause I believe it may be opening up more damage. I've had 4 prolotherapy's with glucosomine and HGH and my knee has improved significantly, but I feel the dissecan is still causing issues. I can't play any sports but I'm walking well and could jog if I needed too.

I'm willing to try anything to avoid another 2 months of non-weight bearing.. I had an inch of quadriceps wasting after my oats and I only got back about half of it with rehab. I can't afford to go through all that again. Microfracture is my last resort, I am just hoping the lesion does not get too big.

Great thread btw, I am going to go back and read it twice. Its hard to keep up with who had what done and what each persons starting point was.

[rob wilson]

If you can afford it I believe you should continue the prolotherapy and add in the Regenexx. Hopeuflly this will enable you to avoid any further surgery. Even if you did have surgery it would enhance the results by doing the the prolo and Regenexx post surgery.

[Cstein]

If you can afford it I believe you should continue the prolotherapy and add in the Regenexx. Hopeuflly this will enable you to avoid any further surgery. Even if you did have surgery it would enhance the results by doing the the prolo and Regenexx post surgery.

Thanks Rob for your advise,

I do want to continue the prolo but I wasn't sure if it could be done in combination with regenexx. I absolutely don't want another surgery, but if I find I have another dissecan, I will have it removed pending what regenexx recommends.

I noticed in your signature you had HGH with abrasion how did that work out for you? you can email me @ [email protected] if you prefer to keep this thread on topic. thanks

[GJJ]

Moderator,

People need to be aware of the good and the bad.  Please do not hide the truth that there are cases where something can go wrong.  People need to make the decisions if the process is good or bad for them.  There is no way everything is going to be perfect but we still are entitle to have the truth and we can decide if it is someone who really is just mad or there was an error in the process.  You need to stop blocking posting that provide bad results.  We can decide to believe or not.

I would like to know what went wrong.  I am entitle to know my options and not the good selling points.  Its my knees and my life.

GJJ

[The KNEEguru]

Dear JGG
I am not sure what it is that you are referring to. Perhaps it is the post I edited today on a new thread from a new member who had never before posted?

I am the owner of this site, not just a moderator. It is really up to me what I block. I do not take kindly to being told that I "need to stop blocking posting that provide bad results". I have a responsibility to protect my website organisation from any post that in my judgement might end up as a libel issue against my organisation.

Indeed I very seldom block posts, although I have recently had several spammers whose profiles I edited to remove the spam link.

KNEEguru