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Stem cells for chronic lumbar pain

Spine Health | Last Active: 4 hours ago | Replies (22)

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@jenniferhunter

@kdks99 There has been a lot of hype about stem cells for spine issues. I met a woman who is paralyzed and wheelchair bound who went to another country and had stem cell injections that didn't change anything. There is real research going on at Mayo Clinic with Dr. Bydon, a spine neurosurgeon. He has had some success with patients with spinal cord injuries and regeneration with stem cells. One of the issues with the spinal discs is that they have no blood supply. The vessels that allowed a child's spine to grown disappear in adulthood. Bone can heal and fuse and grow more cells, but I'm not aware that a cartilage disc would have that ability at this time in medical advancement. A lot depends on blood supply in healing the body and oxygen supply is needed. The research is exciting at Mayo, and worth reading about.
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/study-documents-safety-improvements-from-stem-cell-therapy-after-spinal-cord-injury/
https://www.mayo.edu/research/labs/neuro-informatics/overview
A discovery as significant as this should be published in a medical journal, so that would be where to search to see if real spine healing with stem cells is possible and why. There just isn't enough information, and there are a always people willing to take money to try something. Patients have hope, so they are willing to try unproven methods. There may be risks involved such as infection or a misplaced injection that causes damage. It's something to think about. I wonder what keeps a stem cell from differentiating into a cancer cell? We just don't know enough. Perhaps in the future, this information may change.

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Replies to "@kdks99 There has been a lot of hype about stem cells for spine issues. I met..."

My doc and the famous "spine expert" both said it needs to be fetal stem cells which cannot be used in the states. There is some evidence that this is effective but since research here is limited due to constraints we just don't know. https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/3/1439

Related but not totally the same, is there anything that can help with repairing nerve damage that is causing me alot of twitching and throbbing in my legs ? I have nerve damage at s5-L1.

Thanks
Anne

Agreed. This work is valuable and I have written to Dr. Bydon [as a former patient of Mayo Clinic]