Treatment of knee pain with stem cell injection

Treatment of knee pain with stem cell injection

Definiton

Knee Osteoarthritis is a gradually progressive chronic disease that we have to manipulate its symptoms over time through different management methods. 
Depending on the degree of your Osteoarthritis, your physician will determine which method of treatment you are starting with. 
Management usually starts with thorough clinical examination and requesting the important investigations such as hip x-ray or hip MRI. After that, you may begin with a course of medications and few physiotherapy sessions to enable stretching and strengthening the hip muscles. However, if this first line of management did not help with your Knee pain, you will be offered a step forward which is stem cell injection. 

Causes

- overweight
- Standing for long periods of time
- Exercise with heavyweights
- Some immune diseases affecting the joints. “Rheumatoid…etc”
- Inflammation of the synovial pad around the knee cap
- Inflammation of the ligaments and tendons surrounding the knee
- Muscle contraction around the knee
- It violated the cruciate tendons
- Erosion of the meniscus due to a wrong movement with heavyweight or force of movement in the wrong direction.

Symptoms

Knee pain (unilateral or bilateral)
Pain radiates to the lower leg
Joint crackling with movement
Stiffness in severe degrees of osteoarthritis. That is, the patient's inability to fully bend or straighten his leg.
Knee osteoarthritis is said to be mild, moderate or severe according to the radiological and clinical evaluation.

Methods of Treatment
These techniques include several options, including:

Stem cell injection: Stem cells are immature cells that can divide and change into different types of mature cells with different jobs. There are 2 main types of stem cells:

Adult stem cells are found in bone marrow, fat, blood, joints, and many other tissues. These stem cells are also called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs).

Embryonic stem cells are found in embryos (not used in the treatment of osteoarthritis)

Most stem cells used for the experimental treatment of OA are adult MSCs. Researchers can easily collect them from fat or bone marrow.

MSCs are able to turn into cartilage, bone, muscle, tendon, ligaments, or fat, depending on the type of tissue that surrounds them. This is why researchers are studying MSCs in stem cell treatments for OA.

Research shows that MSCs release anti-inflammatory factors that help heal and lessen pain. When they are injected into a joint, some studies show they may help relieve pain, swelling, and loss of movement.

Stem cells can also be used to make an artificial tissue in a lab through a process called tissue engineering. This lab-made tissue can then be put into a joint to help rebuild (repair) damaged bone, ligaments, and cartilage.

Other ways to treat knee roughness without surgery

- Treatment of knee pain with plasma injection
- Treatment of knee pain with Radiofrequency
- Treatment of knee pain with hyaluronic injection

 Advantages of treating knee pain without surgery:

As mentioned earlier, these interventions are minimal invasive procedures.

- These interventions are performed under the effect of local anesthesia.
The patient is discharged from the hospital on the same day
The patient returns to his normal life in the shortest possible time. From two to three days.
It must be noted that the patient must adhere to all the doctor's instructions to rest, not to follow the stressful daily life practices that aggravate the pain, and to stop the wrong habits that worsen the situation.