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Anyone has tried, or knows someone who tried, a cultured cell treatment to an articulation? Teknon and MedXCell seem quite interesting. I tried googling and searching the forum for testimonials but found none. MedXCell claims that over 700 patients have been treated and would really be interesting to know how it turned out for them.
Ok, thanks for the info! Yup, from what I have understood PRP seems to work best for tendons and other soft tissue issues. Is Regenexx-C the only cultured cells treatment out there?
Theres also : https://www.cellmedicine.com/he was on the joe rogan podcast recently, apparently the umbilical cord stem cells are extremely potent as well...
Quote from: Brandon123 on January 19, 2018, 08:54:17 AMOk, thanks for the info! Yup, from what I have understood PRP seems to work best for tendons and other soft tissue issues. Is Regenexx-C the only cultured cells treatment out there? No, there are others, it was discussed earlier in this thread. There's the Teknon Medical Center in Barcelona and MedXcell in Switzerland, both run by the same doctors. They've published very good data on their procedures, but I can't say to what extent they're comparable to Regenexx Cayman. To my knowledge the main similarity is that they both use autologous cultured bone marrow MSCs and deliver the cells via injection. At Regenexx Cayman, they use customized blood platelet solutions to optimize cell growth based on lab data collected during the expansion phase, as well as a little dexamethasone to stimulate cartilage growth, so you're getting an optimized injection. I don't know if the Teknon doctors have any techniques to optimize growth. At Regenexx Cayman they also do a full biomechanical assessment and customize the treatment plan to address your specific issues, so it's a bit more involved than just squirting cells into the knee. For example, they do tendon and ligament injections to address instability, as well bone augmentations, platelet lysate injections around nerves to address neuromuscular problems, etc. I'm not sure how a biomechanical evaluation and treatment would look at Teknon or MedXcell. I do know they treat lumbar discs in addition to knees, but I can't say much more than that. There's also Clinica Las Condes in Santiago, Chile, they've published data on using cultured cells to treat hip OA. Depending on what country you're from and whether or not you need a visa, there's the Royan Institute in Iran. They're using cultured cell injections for knees and have published a lot of good data too.
It's been a while, so time for an update. I'm now over 12 months post-op for Regenexx-C and I'm actually heading back to Grand Cayman this month for a second treatment. It's not because I've declined, but because I want an extra boost to see how far I can take this. I also have a few issues which haven't improved to my satisfaction, in particular my patellar tendons need more work, so that will be a big focus on this trip. I have cells in cryostorage, so no need to do a bone marrow harvest. Currently I have 3 million MSCs in storage, which they'll culture a little more to get a therapeutic dose, but it will most likely be a smaller dose than my first treatment. This treatment will likely use up the rest of my remaining cells, so if I want more after this I have to start the whole process over again. Hopefully that won't be necessary... at least for a while, I'm not getting any younger! They'll likely give me some more platelet lysate injections in my low back while I'm down there. Back is still doing well but I get some occasional stiffness and right leg symptoms that seem like nerve irritation. That might require more maintenance going forward.Overall I've continued to improve, despite my stubborn patellar tendons. For the last month I've been jogging up and down the stairs at a park near my apartment. It's 188 steps to the top and right now I'm doing 5 laps up and down, which I'm increasing as my fitness improves. It feels great to get an actual workout again. Before the procedure my knees would have been in agony after a workout like that, but lately exercise seems to make them feel better... how it should be. I get a little stiffness in the evenings if I work at my desk for too long, and I do get some occasional pain from the tendons if I'm rising from a squat position, but overall my pain levels are much lower.I should mention that my Achilles tendons are starting to get stiff again too. The PRP injections gave me big improvements for about 9 months before they started to decline, which isn't bad I think. I've been doing eccentric exercises, which I was very consistent about until I was distracted by traveling last month. Been doing eccentrics for the patellar tendons as well. I will most likely get more PRP for the Achilles sometime this summer, as well as some PRP in my right hip which has some tendinopathy. These areas might need long term maintenance.Hopefully this 2nd treatment boosts my knees further so that I'm sufficiently satisfied with them. This treatment is going to be $10k for both knees, plus an additional $4k if we do the platelet lysate injections in my low back. If I had to do the whole cycle over again my finances couldn't handle it, so this will be the last cultured cell treatment for a while, unless something crazy happened like one of my hips started to go out, in which case I would scrounge up the money somehow. Fingers crossed that won't happen.