Back pain is, unfortunately, very common. It is the second most common cause of missed work and a leading cause of disability. In many cases, the best approach for acute back pain is to rest the affected area for 2–4 weeks.
However, chronic back pain—defined as pain lasting more than three months—may not heal properly without additional treatment. If you are suffering from chronic back pain, regenerative medicine therapies, including stem cell therapy, may offer a potential solution.
Stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine provide cutting-edge, minimally invasive alternatives to surgery and long-term pain medication use. These treatments aim to support the body’s natural healing processes by stimulating repair in damaged or unhealed tissues.
Common Causes of Back Pain
Herniated or Ruptured Discs
Herniated or Ruptured Discs act as a cushion between the bones of the spine. Discs become herniated or ruptured when the jelly-like center of the disc pushes through a crack in the rubbery outer layer. This can then impinge on the spinal cord and spine nerve causing nerve pain and nerve dysfunction.
Spinal Osteoarthritis or Degenerative Disc Disease
These terms describe painful conditions that are result of the wearing down of the discs and joints between the vertebrae.
Muscle or Ligament Strain
Repeated heavy lifting can strain back muscles or ligaments. These muscles and ligaments act as the stabilizers for the entire spinal column. While ligament and tendon tears can be painful on their own, a lack of stabilization from their injury results in osteoarthritis and degenerative disc disease over time as the discs and bone joints become injured from the lack of tendon and ligament support.
Sciatica
Pain radiating along the sciatic nerve which runs down one or both legs from the lower back. This is impingement on the major spinal nerve of the leg, and results from disc herniation or spinal arthritis resulting in narrowing of the spinal canal.
How back pain is treated using Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Therapy
Prolozone Therapy uses an injection of ozone gas along with high concentrate dextrose in order to stimulate growth, healing, repair and endogenous stem cell activation. Dextrose is a mild irritant which turns on a healing response in a tissue that is stuck in a non-functional state of disrepair. Ozone is a simple molecule containing three atoms of oxygen that is both man made and naturally occurring in nature, whose chemical abbreviation is O3. Since it has one extra molecule of oxygen compared to the common forms of oxygen as O2 (oxygen gas), the extra oxygen molecule is easily passed off in chemical reactions known as oxidation. While ozone is known to irritate the lungs in high concentration, in specific medical concentrations, the oxidative power of ozone in chemical reactions creates what is known in the body as redox (reduction-oxidation) signaling molecules, which are molecules in the body that act as cellular signals based upon their oxidative state. Cytokines, nucleic acids, and enzymes all use oxidative (redox) state to perform and signal their functions in the body on the immune system, genetic system, and metabolism. These signals are what is thought to enable ozone’s regenerative powers through the activation of the body’s own stem cells following ozone injection into non-healing tissue.
Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Therapy is one of the cutting edge tools we use at Hawaii Island Stem Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine. This therapy harnesses the inherent power of platelets, which are blood components found in the patient’s own blood. In the blood, platelets have two major functions; signaling adjacent cells to begin the healing process and to stop bleeding in recently damaged tissues. When the body is damaged in any way, platelets release growth factors into the surrounding tissue which then signal these tissues to flood the area with repair cells and healing nutrients. This effectively begins the process of repair and re-growth in damaged tissues. Hawaii Island Stem Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine uses the patient’s own blood—which is then centrifuged to separate blood cells from the platelets—resulting in a highly potent PRP. This PRP is then injected into very specific musculoskeletal areas under ultrasound guidance and using precision injection technique. The result is a higher level of healing than prior to the treatment due to the orchestration of an enhanced healing response vis a vis the growth factors in the platelets.
While platelet dose remains an important factor, emerging research suggests that the biological activity of a PRP preparation may also depend on how the product is processed, activated, filtered, and delivered. [1]
By optimizing growth factor signaling, timing, and concentrating beneficial plasma proteins and autologous exosomes, the next generation of PRP available at Hawaii Island Regenerative medicine and Stem Cell Therapy goes beyond our competitors to target the body’s natural repair and regrowth processes in a more biologically sophisticated manner.
Read the full details about our next generation PRP therapy here.
Allogeneic Allograft
An allogeneic allograft is regenerative tissue donated from another individual that is applied to diseased or chronically injured tissues in the recipient.
In both the laboratory and in small scale clinical trials to date, these products have been shown to be uniquely helpful in regeneration of chronically diseased tissues. These birth products are a purified portion of the umbilical cord, also known as the Whartons Jelly, and although not intended to provide signaling effects due to FDA regulations, and while no claims can be made as to live cell activity, these products are generally thought to contain live Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC’s), live Exosomes (Extracellular Signaling Vesicles), and Polypeptide Enriched Matrix (PEM).1
MSC’s are thought to exert their effects through paracrine signaling, that is, the release of signaling factors to communicate with the surrounding cells and cellular environment in favor of regeneration and repair. In large part, they mediate this signaling effect through exosomes, which are small spherical membrane structures that are released from mesenchymal stem cells to circulate in the extracellular space. These spherical membranes are packages containing signaling material, protein, and mRNA, which can turn on genes and genomic proteins of growth and repair in the target tissue, and modulate the immune response in order to reduce inflammation. And finally, the polypeptide enriched matrix (PEM) (extracellular) component of the Whartons jelly, contains the growth media and structural support for the entire system, containing growth factors, peptides, and hyaluronic acid, to name a few.
Contact Hawaii Island Stem Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine to schedule an appointment and to find out if stem cell therapy is the right solution for your back pain.
