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If you don’t work in the medical field, you may not know the term “regenerative medicine.” If you analyze it for a moment, though, you can probably discern what it means.
Regenerative medicine means medical treatment that regenerates or replaces animal or human cells, organs, or tissues. Doctors and scientists can use it to establish or restore normal bodily functions.
With regenerative medicine, cutting-edge tech meets bold medical innovation. Regenerative medical treatments can restore an individual’s capabilities that they might otherwise lose for good. It’s an exciting new area that’s rising in this young century.
In this article, we’ll explore it a little bit more and go into some specific examples.
What Can Regenerative Medicine Do?
Regenerative medicine is an emerging field. Various clinics, hospitals, and other facilities are studying it in different capacities. It’s capable of all sorts of things, including:
- Eliminating or reducing pain
- Healing injuries faster and more effectively
- Utilizing the body’s natural healing processes for expedient tissue rebuilding
The main regenerative medicine idea is to target underlying pain sources with no surgery or medication. If these processes work, a patient can save a lot of medication money. Also, any time a patient can avoid surgery, doctors generally prefer to handle their situation that way.
When regenerative medical procedures work, they allow individuals to increase mobility and functionality with a shorter recovery time.
What Body Areas Can Regenerative Medicine Help?
There are potentially few body areas that regenerative medical processes cannot assist. It’s just a question of pioneering those techniques, which requires research. Regenerative medicine can potentially restore:
- The spine
- Ligaments and tendons
- Joints
If you’re in a car accident, for instance, and there are no viable surgical solutions to alleviate your pain, you might achieve restoration through this treatment area. Doctors and scientists consider this to be state-of-the-art technology, and we should hear much more about it in the coming years.
Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections
Platelet-rich plasma injections are one regenerative medicine example that gets a lot of press these days. You sometimes hear about these treatments with baseball players or other sports stars trying to come back from injuries faster.
Doctors use a patient’s own PRP, or platelet-rich plasma, to help with injury healing. The doctor injects the patient’s platelets into the injured area, which might be the spine, a knee, wrist, etc.
Doctors consider this to be a permanent, non-surgical solution. If you have arthritis, spinal injuries, or tendon or ligament sprains, you might be a likely candidate. With a platelet injection, you should see healing acceleration and superior tissue repair.
In theory, an individual can be pain-free in far less time than would be the case without the treatment. It’s because PRP contains both healing and growth factors.
Stem Cell Therapy
Stem cell therapy is another regenerative medical procedure about which you may have heard. This one is potentially controversial in some circles.
The reason some individuals have stem cell therapy objections is because of research certain health organizations are doing. In some instances, they’re using aborted or nonviable fetal tissue for stem cell experimentation and treatments. Some people think this is unethical.
Regardless of how you feel about it, though, there’s no denying what doctors can do with stem cell therapy now. They have developed a relatively simple outpatient procedure. In it, they inject your body with stem cells.
The objective is the same as with PRP treatments. After the injection, you should experience less injury pain, and you can heal faster and more completely than you otherwise could.
Again, if you undertake this therapy, you need no surgery or medication. You won’t take as long to recover, and you’ll have more muscle strength and flexibility.
What’s so amazing about stem cells is that they can differentiate into fat cells, cartilage, or bone. This stimulates body healing.
Some doctors and medical facilities are also exploring regenerative medicine through prolotherapy and microfragmented adipose injections. The idea behind these is much the same as with the others we mentioned. It’s all about nonsurgical options that promote faster healing with no medication regimen required.
Expect regenerative medicine studies to continue as we progress further into the 21st century. There’s no reason not to explore this exciting field, as we can potentially help injured and ailing individuals who, in the past, would not have had these options.
While a few insurance companies still consider some of these treatments experimental, as the research proves their worth, society should accept them on a wider scale.
