The Amniotic “Stem Cell Therapy” scam.
Amniotic derived products are proliferating like zombies in the regenerative medicine world. So, what are those amniotic injection products? Amniotic fluid is produced during pregnancy. This fluid is surrounded by a membrane that forms like a sack or balloon, covering the fetus. Just before birth, this sack breaks and the fluid comes out. This is what people refers as “the […]
To See or Not to See?
When I tell my orthopedic surgeon friends that I do all my intra-articular injections, including knee injections, under fluoroscopy (a form of x-rays) they like to give me a hard time. Their comments go along the lines of:” well, if you cannot find the knee (the largest joint in the body) without x-rays, you shouldn’t be injecting it.” But, in […]
Best Way to prevent Back Pain Episodes? Regular Exercise
Low back pain is extremely common. It is one of the main reason for patients to visit a doctor. Most of us will experience episodes of low back pain at some point in our lives. Luckily, most of the time these episodes will last a few days and then the pain goes away. Unfortunately, these episodes tend to recur, and […]
Safety of Orthopedic Stem Cell Therapies
Looking for some information on the internet I stumbled into a page, put up by an organization called the International Society for Stem Cell Research, entitled: “Nine things to know about stem cell treatments.” The first statement on that list reads like an ominous warning: “Currently, very few stem cell treatments have been proven to be safe” and further down […]
An Engineer’s View of Activity and Knee Health
It is well known that exercise and increased activity results in decreased pain and increased function in patients with knee osteoarthritis. It makes sense: more activity and exercises keep muscles, tendon, and ligaments strong, reducing the stress on the joints. But, now, with a paper entitled: “Tribological Rehydration of Cartilage: a New Insight into an old Problem”, a research team […]