Regenexx Des Moines
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does exercise help ease pain associated with degenerative disc disease?
Can exercise promote healing in patients with degenerative disc disease? A study reported October 1, 2015, in Spine Journal looks at the regenerative potential of a particular type of exercise for patients suffering from degenerative disc disease. Disc degeneration in...
what is a bone spur?
Many patients with bone spurs freak out when they’re told by their doctors that they have a disease. The good news is that bone spurs have gotten a bum rap. A bone spur is the body’s natural reaction to pressure on bone. Essentially, the body grows new bone. The most...
acromioplasty—why this frequent addition to rotator cuff surgery usually is a bad idea
To chop a shoulder or not to chop a shoulder … that is the question. One of the big issues with rotator cuff surgery is the long recovery time spent in an immobilizer brace. Unfortunately, the more procedures a surgeon performs during the surgery (including the...
yoga vs. weight training
There seem to be two polar opposites when it comes to exercise—yoga vs. weight training. Weightlifters are bulky and tight, while yoga pratitioners are lithe and limber. A study reported in the October 12, 2015, issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise...
can a woman with severe migraines, spinal stenosis, and arthritis get relief with advanced regenerative medicine?
Trudy visited a Regenexx doctor to get off migraine medications, as well as other medications that she was taking for her neck, back, shoulders, and knees. She could only stand for five minutes at a time. She aspired to return to one of her favorite pastimes of riding...
can arthritis kill you?
Are arthritis and heart disease related? Several studies show that they are, including a study published October 13, 2015, in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Why do these two conditions seem to go hand in hand? If you suffer from arthritis, should you...
study examines link between knee and/or back pain and sleep problems
Many things contribute to our modern epidemic of poor sleep, but most can agree that pain makes sleep difficult. A study reported in the October 2015 issue of the Public Library of Science journal examined the sleep patterns of patients with knee and back pain. It...
how to avoid knee surgery
Want to know how to avoid knee surgery to repair your anterior cruciate (ACL) ligament? Use the power of your own stem cells. Madeline skipped surgery for her complete ACL tear and instead had her own cells precisely and carefully injected into her torn ligament. Six...
an exercise pill? what could possibly go wrong?
An arcane paper about how exercise regulates the biochemistry of muscle published in the November 2015 issue of Cell journal sparked news outlets to claim that scientists were on the verge of creating an “exercise pill.” This would mean that we could all just pop a...
what you won’t be doing after a knee replacement
There are a number of television commercials for knee-replacement devices showing elderly and middle-aged people doing all sorts of crazy things. Even the names of these devices speak to the wonderful active life you’ll have—how about the “Get-Around Knee”? Let’s...
chronic back pain causes your brain to shrink
In the 1970s, John Sarno, a New York physician, wrote a series of best-selling books trying to convince patients that their pain was all in their head. A study published in the December 2015 issue of The Journal of Pain disputes Dr. Sarno’s hypothesis by showing that...
three signs that your knee pain may be originating in your back
Just about everything you think you know about your knee pain probably is wrong. Most physicians hold fast to what they learned in medical school, but the science of medicine is constantly evolving—finding less invasive ways to treat our ailments and discovering the...
should you have knee meniscus surgery?
The most common orthopedic surgery in the United States is performed on the knee meniscus. A level-1 study done in Finland and published in the February 2016 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that surgery done to repair a locking meniscus is no better...
the top 10 causes of cartilage loss—and what you can do to prevent it
Regenexx patients often ask what they can do to help their cartilage. Understanding the causes of cartilage loss in the first place is helpful. obesity, mechanical. Being heavier places more wear and tear forces on cartilage. solution: lose weight. This one is simple,...
seven headache causes and cures
What’s the first thing you do to try to relieve an irritating headache? Swig down an extra cup of coffee? Raid the medicine cabinet and pop a couple of ibuprofen? Rub your throbbing temples? Migraine sufferers rely on neurologist-prescribed triptans, antihistamines,...
do you find knee replacement scary? learn your alternatives to surgery
Anyone who has taken a gander at knee-replacement pictures online knows that the procedure is not pretty. First there’s the demolition: The surgeon creates a long incision in the skin to access the knee joint and then...
nerve regeneration—the future doesn’t involve surgery
Regenexx first began treating injured nerves using orthobiologics delivered via ultrasound guidance in 2012. At that time, the concept that a precise injection could help nerve regeneration was revolutionary. After a few years of seeing nerve- injury patients...
lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow): why there’s absolutely no need for surgery
The medical term for tennis elbow is lateral epicondylitis. The problem with this term is that it suggests swelling around the epicondyle, which is the bony bump you can feel on the outside of the elbow where many forearm muscles attach at their tendons. Numerous...