What Is a Rotator Cuff Tear?

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and their respective tendons that attach to the bones of the shoulder joint. This so-called cuff allows the shoulder to move and while maintaining it stable. Tendonitis of the rotator cuff can lead to inflammation of these tendons and if continued activity and stress is applied on these tendons, they can tear, resulting in a rotator cuff tear. The shoulder joint is a ball and socket type joint that encompasses the top part of the arm bone where it forms a joint with the shoulder blade. The rotator cuff holds the head of the humerus into the scapula, limiting its mobility so that the head of the arm bone does not dislocate and thereby controls the movement of the shoulder joint.

The tendons of the rotator cuff pass underneath a bony area on their way to attaching the top part of the arm bone. When these tendons become inflamed, they can become more frayed over this area during shoulder movements. Sometimes, a bone spur may narrow the space even more. Prior to the cuff muscles or tendons completely tearing, the problem is called rotator cuff tendinitis, or impingement syndrome. This impingement or trapping and may be due to keeping the arm in the same position for long periods of time, sleeping on the same arm each night thereby placing direct pressure on they socket, playing sports where moving the arm over the head is done repeatedly as in lifting weights above your head, swimming, tennis, baseball, and using the arm overhead for many hours or days.

Rotator cuff tears may occur in two ways. A sudden tear may happen when you fall on an outstretched arm, or after an abrupt, jerking motion such as attempting to lift something heavy. The pain with a sudden tear after a fall or injury is usually intense. This injury is commonly associated with a weakness of the shoulder. Occasionally a snapping sensation of movement can also be felt. Chronic tears of the rotator cuff tendon occur slowly over time. This is more likely in individuals with impingement syndrome. At some point, the tendon frays or splits and tears. Symptoms of a chronic rotator cuff tear include a gradual worsening of pain, weakness, and stiffness or loss of motion. The exact point when a rotator cuff tear begins in someone with chronic shoulder tendinitis may or may not, be noticed.

There are partial or full rotator cuff tears. The partial tear is when a tear does not completely sever the attachments to the bone. A full thickness tear refers to a through and through tear. It may be as small as a pinpoint or the entire tendon or tendons. Complete tears detach the tendon from the site and will not heal very well on their own or with minimally invasive techniques. Pain at night is common in people with rotator cuff tears. The pain may be severe enough that it can wake you up.

We at REGENERATIVE MEDICINE INSTITUTE OF NEVADA have found that our Cytokine Growth Factor Therapy enhanced with PRP can often shorten the recovery time of a Rotator Cuff injury. Brining into the joint a concentration of growth factors not normally in the joint can help the healing of the partially torn or well-opposed Rotator Cuff tendons. This can avoid surgery in many cases and involves no anesthesia. A quick in office procedure where the cytokines and growth factors are mixed with PRP and then injected directly into the injured shoulder can lead to a faster recovery with no surgery.

Things to Know About Stem Cell Treatments

Knee osteoarthritis is a common medical condition in the elderly and the obese. Although there are several treatment options, in recent years, stem cell therapy has been applied in an ever-increasing number of clinical cases. Knee osteoarthritis is a chronic, indolent disease that will affect more and more people every year increasing number of patients. The pain, tenderness and stiffness is caused by degeneration of the cartilage substance inside the knee. Estimates are that by 2030, only in the United States, this medical condition will partially or completely disable 67 million people. Conventional options like physiotherapy or drugs offer only temporary relief of clinical symptoms and can have side effects. A complete healing of normal cartilage function does not come from those treatments alone. In severe cases of knee osteoarthritis total knee replacement may be required. These surgical interventions come together with high effort and costs and are not always successful.

Self-healing of the cartilage can take a prolonged period in those patients lucky enough to be able to produce the healing components. The fluid inside the joint contains mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) which can differentiate into chondrocytes. This newly formed cartilage is very weak as well as soft and can be destroyed with a small amount of stress within the joint. Normally, there are a limited number of MSC’s in the joint at any time.

The purpose of using stem cells is to support the body’s own process to heal the cartilage which will lessen the pain of osteoarthritis relief from OA. Although repairing the cartilage can occur, at the present time there is no permanent cure for osteoarthritis.

The stem cell candidates for use in these therapies are multipotent adult MSCs, because they are available in several tissues. MSCs can be harvested from bone marrow and adipose tissue that the patient with osteoarthritis has. A big advantage in harvesting the treatment substance from the patient themselves is that MSCs and platelet-rich plasma ensures that the patient’s immune system will not reject the cells. After this procedure, it is important that the joint is limited in its’ weight bearing for a period as little as possible because the newly differentiated cartilage is highly susceptible to damage. MSCs treatment offers a quick and relatively uneventful recovery.

The MSC treatment should only be used if the degeneration of the cartilage is not complete. If there is cartilage and joint fluid is available, stem cells can differentiate because of necessary growth factors are present in the joint fluid. In cases where there is bone-on-bone contact, stem cell treatment is not indicated. It is crucial for the patient is to limit physical activity and pressure on the involved joint in the immediate period after the therapy so there can be limited stress on the joint improve the chance of successful recovery. It is common that more than a single session is required to get the amount of cartilage needed to regenerate enough cartilage to accomplish full healing.

Stem Cell Therapy Treatment Las Vegas

Stem cell therapy is the use of stem cells to treat a medical problem or to prevent further deterioration of that problem. Stem cells in bone e marrow was the first type of stem cell therapy utilized. It was used to help the patient with cancers of the blood such as leukemia. Stem cell therapy has been controversial and is apolitically charged topic. The attempt of scientists to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells, to create new stem cells and their use of techniques to create induced pluripotent stem cells has been condemned by those that are worried about people using embryos. This controversy is due to the politics of abortion clinic and their possible sale of embryos as well as concerns about human cloning

Bone marrow transplant is the most widely used stem cell therapy, but some therapies derived from umbilical cord blood as well as from adipose-derived sources are also in use. Research is underway to develop various sources for stem cells. There are many clinical case reports in the treatment of joint problems reported. The main focus in the medical literature of joint issues has been on mesenchymal stem cells. Stem cells are believed to assist in repair via five ways: 1) providing an anti-inflammatory effect, 2) attaching to damaged tissues and then attracting other cells that are necessary for tissue repair, 3) promoting tissue remodeling instead scar formation, 4) inhibiting cell death, and 5) differentiating into different kinds of tissue.

To further enrich blood supply to the damaged areas, and consequently promote tissue regeneration, platelet-rich plasma could be used in conjunction with stem cell transplantation.[74][75] The efficacy of some stem cell populations may also be affected by the method of delivery; for instance, to regenerate bone, stem cells are often introduced in a scaffold where they produce the minerals necessary for generation of functional bone.

We at the Regenerative Medicine Institute of Nevada are proud to say that we offer these new innovative options and have had good success in many individuals that are seeking mesenchymal stem cell therapy. Running the full gamut from platelet-rich plasma (PRP) alone to adding cytokines and growth factors to the PRP, to adipose-derived mesenchymal cells, or mesenchymal cells from a donor, the options available at the Regenerative Medicine Institute of Nevada to potentially treat a diverse patient population so treatments are customized for each patient.

Types of shoulder Pain

Most shoulder problems are categorized in most commonly four types. These are tendon inflammation or tendon tear, instability, arthritis of some type, or a fracture. A less common cause for shoulder pain can be bursitis, or an inflammation of a sac of fluid that is surrounding the joint of the shoulder. The sac is meant to lessen or eliminate any friction that might occur with the gliding of tendons in the shoulder. The tendon looks like a cord and its’ purpose is to connect muscle to bones. This is in contrast to ligaments that connect bones to bones. Tendonitis is an inflammation of that cord. When it has been inflamed for a long period, it is referred to as tendinosis. This inflammation or tendonitis is very similar to the manner in which the sole of a shoe can wear down over time from wearing that shoe.

In the shoulder joint, four tendons make up what is referred to as the rotator cuff. The function of the rotator cuff is to keep your arm bone, referred to as the humerus, in the socket of the shoulder. The rotator cuff allows the arm bone to move in all of the direction it does. At the same time, it gives stability to the joint so that the bone does not pop out of place. These same tendons can in certain cases tear. The usual cause of a tearing of a rotator cuff tendon is progressing age, over-use over a long period of time, or a sudden injury like a fall, or blow to that shoulder. When the shoulder blade puts pressure on the tissues of the shoulder, you can develop a problem called should impingement and this can lead to significant shoulder pain. The most common type of arthritis that can cause shoulder pain is osteoarthritis. This usually begins in middle age and progressively gets worse. This can be due to a distant injury or from just normal wear and tear of the shoulder joint. The fracture that can cause shoulder pain is a broken bone of the collarbone, the humerus, or the shoulder blade.

We at the Regenerative Medicine Institute of Nevada are proud to say that we offer these new innovative options and have had good success in many individuals that are trying to avoid surgical options to relieve shoulder pain. Running the full gamut from platelet-rich plasma (PRP) alone, to adding cytokines and growth factors to the PRP, to adipose-derived mesenchymal cells, or mesenchymal cells from a donor, the options available at the Regenerative Medicine Institute of Nevada to treat your shoulder pain are wide and may help you avoid a surgery that can have its series of potential limitations and complications.