Stem Cell Therapy For Back Pain: What kind of results can a patient expect?
Approximately 80 percent of adults experience back pain to some degree during their lifetimes.
Back pain is ranked as the third most burdensome condition in the United States and the leading cause of work-related disability.
Back pain can also be extremely difficult to treat.
There are many conditions that cause back pain and no individual test that can tell you which one you have.
Your doctor can narrow it down, but many back pain conditions are fairly vaguely defined.
Finally, patients now have different options for treating their back pain with regenerative medicine that actually works.
What are some of the causes for back pain?
Back pain often develops without a cause that your doctor can identify with a test or an imaging study. Conditions commonly linked to back pain include:
- Muscle or ligament strain. Repeated heavy lifting or a sudden awkward movement can strain back muscles and spinal ligaments. If you’re in poor physical condition, constant strain on your back can cause painful muscle spasms.
- Bulging or ruptured disks. Disks act as cushions between the bones (vertebrae) in your spine. The soft material inside a disk can bulge or rupture and press on a nerve. However, you can have a bulging or ruptured disk without back pain. Disk disease is often found incidentally when you have spine X-rays for some other reason.
- Arthritis. Osteoarthritis can affect the lower back. In some cases, arthritis in the spine can lead to a narrowing of the space around the spinal cord, a condition called spinal stenosis.
- Osteoporosis. Your spine’s vertebrae can develop painful fractures if your bones become porous and brittle.
When should a patient see a doctor if they experience back pain?
Most back pain gradually improves with home treatment and self-care, usually within a few weeks. Contact your doctor if your back pain:
- Persists past a few weeks.
- Is severe and doesn’t improve with rest.
- Spreads down one or both legs, especially if the pain extends below the knee.
- Causes weakness, numbness or tingling in one or both legs.
- Is accompanied by unexplained weight loss.
In rare cases, back pain can signal a serious medical problem. Seek immediate care if your back pain:
- Causes new bowel or bladder problems.
- Is accompanied by a fever.
- Follows a fall, blow to your back or other injury.
How can you diagnose the severity of back pain?
Your doctor will examine your back and assess your ability to sit, stand, walk and lift your legs. Your doctor might also ask you to rate your pain on a scale of zero to 10 and talk to you about how well you’re functioning with your pain.
These assessments help determine where the pain comes from, how much you can move before pain forces you to stop and whether you have muscle spasms. They can also help rule out more-serious causes of back pain.
If there is reason to suspect that a specific condition is causing your back pain, your doctor might order one or more tests:
- X-ray. These images show the alignment of your bones and whether you have arthritis or broken bones. These images alone won’t show problems with your spinal cord, muscles, nerves or disks.
- MRI or CT scans. These scans generate images that can reveal herniated disks or problems with bones, muscles, tissue, tendons, nerves, ligaments and blood vessels.
- Blood tests. These can help determine whether you have an infection or other condition that might be causing your pain.
- Bone scan. In rare cases, your doctor might use a bone scan to look for bone tumors or compression fractures caused by osteoporosis.
- Nerve studies. Electromyography (EMG) measures the electrical impulses produced by the nerves and the responses of your muscles. This test can confirm nerve compression caused by herniated disks or narrowing of your spinal canal (spinal stenosis).
How does stem cell therapy for back pain work?
Stem cell therapy for back pain is a regenerative therapy, meaning that it actually helps the degenerated intervertebral discs to repair themselves. Stem cell therapy has the capacity to:
- Develop into the kind of cell needed to repair. the disc
- Self-renew once injected, so they keep working to heal.
- Reduce pain by acting as an anti-inflammatory on damaged tissue.
Stem cell theray is the first therapy for back pain that not only relieves pain but also helps the damaged tissue to rebuild itself.
Will stem cell therapy work for you or your loved one?
There’s no way to tell how well stem cell treatment will relieve any individual patient’s pain. Every patient’s lower back pain is different. Even the best treatment won’t work if the patient engages in the same activities that contributed to the degeneration in the first place.
Before you undergo stem cell therapy for back pain, talk to your doctor to understand everything possible about your pain. If there are certain activities that have contributed to your disc degeneration, you’ll need to be ready to limit or cut them out before you start stem cell therapy.
For example, Carmelo Zumbo came to Novastem after traveling from Canada looking for alternatives for his back pain.
When his pain began to affect his daily activities, such as playing with his children and going for walks, Carmelo became frustrated when he went to his Canadian doctors and received the news that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.
Desperate for an alternative, he traveled to Novastem to receive stem cell therapy on two occasions and has been experiencing a reduction in the pain almost to the point of non-existence.
Click here to watch his video testimonial.
What are the next steps to see if you’re a candidate?
In order to see if you or your loved one are candidates for stem cell therapy for back pain, the first step is to have a doctor assess your medical history.
In many cases patients think they won’t qualify because of certain reasons but they are in for a surprise when our team explains that they’re the perfect candidate.
We will share all of the information regarding our prediction with you during the phone call.
If stem cell therapy for back pain has a chance of improving your pain we will notify you immediately.
Please click here to schedule a consultation with our medical team.
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