Cartilage is a sturdy, flexible connective tissue that cushions the joining of bones in your joints. It lubricates your joints and absorbs shocks throughout your body, including your knees and shoulders. Sometimes, you may have cartilage damage that leaves you requiring to visit your Joint Regeneration of Lake Oconee specialist. Joint regeneration focuses on restoring damaged cartilage by relying on the ability of the cells in your body to regenerate and replace cartilage that you lost through injury or disease. Unlike joint replacement surgery, regeneration of joints comes with a few, if any, complications and risks.
Consequently, below are some leading conservative treatment options that may help regenerate your cartilage and joints.
- Stem cell therapy
Doctors have relied on this therapy to treat joint and tissue damage for years. In one research, patients with degenerative joint disease, the most common type of arthritis, were subjected to stem cell therapy and reported improvements in their knee pain after about a few years of treatment.
The therapy works by introducing stem cells, your body’s raw materials, into the body’s part with joint pain or issue. Stem cells can differentiate into any type of cell near them. Hence, the cells will trigger the regeneration of the joint tissues.
Your health provider will extract the special human cells from another part of your body, such as bone marrow or the bloodstream.
- Platelet-rich plasma
Plasma is the liquid part of blood that mainly comprises water and protein, and it allows the movement of platelets, white and red blood cells, and other blood components throughout your bloodstream.
Platelets are the minor type of blood cells that you can only see using a microscope, and as their name suggests, they have the shape of small plates.
A doctor can extract your blood and then use a machine to isolate the platelet-rich plasma from other blood components. After collecting the plasma rich in platelets, your doctor injects it into the part of your body requiring joint regeneration. Platelets produce molecules capable of stimulating cellular processes that deliver tissue development and healing.
If you have knee osteoarthritis, research shows that platelet-rich plasma injection may help you halt its progress and alleviate pain.
- Proliferation therapy
Also called prolotherapy, the therapy does not require your health provider to extract stem cells or take a blood sample to isolate platelet-rich plasma.
Your doctor will inject the area of your joint requiring regeneration with an irritating solution several times.
The irritant, such as a sugar or glucose solution, works by activating the growth of the joint’s connective tissue. Any irritating substance exposed to your body activates its natural mechanism for defense and healing. As a result, swelling in your joints and ligaments will subside.
Proliferation therapy can be more effective if your doctor complements it with spinal massaging.
- Microfracture
The therapy may help treat an injury to your articular cartilage, a smooth tissue covering both ends of bones forming a joint. Microfracture works by creating numerous minor incisions at the articular cartilage’s base.
The incisions lead to the area surrounding your problematic joint forming blood clots, which end up covering and treating the injury. However, other treatments for joint regeneration can produce more durable cartilage tissues than microfracture. Also, microfracture is not suitable for treating severe cases of joint pain.
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