Stem Cell Therapy for Athletes
The last thing any athlete wants to hear is that they can’t play, but there’s a new medical treatment known as “stem cell therapy” that athletes are starting to turn towards for sports related injuries because of its quick recovery.
Stem cell therapy can treat multiple injuries, such as inflamed joints, ligament sprains, muscle strains, early osteoarthritis, and more. One of the major benefits to this treatment is the recovery time, which is the most important thing for athletes who have been injured.
Stem cell therapy is believed to regenerate new cells and replace damaged cells. Stem cell therapy enables the patient’s body to use its own stem cells to heal and repair. Some patients may experience pain and soreness after the procedure. Since the patient’s own bone marrow is used, there are no chances of rejection.
The recovery time for this procedure varies depending on the patient and the treatment type, but it usually takes 2-6 weeks. Patients who have tried stem cell therapy have noticed improvement soon after their procedure. Another benefit to this type of treatment is avoiding surgery which has a longer recovery process.
Although there are a some benefits to this treatment, there are also a few down sides. Stem cell therapy is so new that there aren’t a lot of studies to prove it is fully effective and the long term side effects are still unknown. Stem cell therapy is still undergoing research and there’s still a lot that needs to be done for it to be used as a front line treatment.
The way stem cell therapy works is by taking the patient’s own bone marrow from an area in the body like the lower back and then injecting it into the patient’s injured site. The entire procedure takes up to 45-minutes and requires no anesthesia. Patients will feel some pain and may experience swelling and soreness for up to a week after the procedure.
“As a fairly new, rather expensive procedure and insurance not covering it, but with promising results, we felt it necessary to try anything possible to help get the knees to become as healthy as possible. This procedure could possibly take away the need for much more invasive surgeries,” Lynn Seidel said.
Madisyn Seidel is a junior at Rocky Mountain High School. She enjoys spending time with her friends and plays soccer for Storm Academy FC. After high school...
Jocelyn McDonald • Jun 26, 2018 at 8:54 am
My sister was telling me she’s considering stem cell therapy to help with her athletic career, and I was curious to look more into the treatment. Your article had a lot of great points about the benefits of stem cell therapy for athletes, and I think its so interesting that this procedure can be used to treat things like inflamed joints, ligament sprains, muscle strains, early osteoarthritis, and more. This seems like revolutionary treatment, and I’m interested to learn more about this procedure. Thanks for the post! https://personalized-regenerative-medicine.com/stem-cells-stem-cell-therapy/
Tristan Laborde • May 16, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Speaking from personal experience and knowledge of regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy is not for those who possess squeamish tendencies. Personally, I have a high pain tolerance and still found it to be the most excruciating experience to date. Blatantly speaking, there are better treatments now available. Many long-term OCR doctors are reluctant to make the change to more conventional therapies. This is not a bizarre treatment, although many are nervous to make the switch because surgeries are what keeps them in business. Although much of the hype is around stem cells, treatments such as PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) provides a more specific, targeted approach to treating injuries. Please further your research into other available treatment options compared to the stereotypical treatment.
Zak L. • May 16, 2018 at 12:36 pm
Funny to see more and more research being developed about stem cells, it’s definitely abated over the years. Unfortunate that stem cell research isn’t available for a large part of the penury population.