Dr. Jeffrey Gladden explains regenerative joint treatment using a gardening metaphor: stem cells harvested from bone marrow act as seeds, and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) acts as fertilizer to help them repair damaged knees, tendons, and ligaments faster.
So we call that preparing the fields, kind of getting the fields ready to plant. Then, you know, you're not gonna grow plants by just putting fertilizer down or just watering, right? You need, or just having sunlight, you need seeds. And so cells do the work, as I always say. And you can get stem cells or, you know, there's other cells that help the stem cells, the bone marrow. I like to use the bone marrow, but fat has those in it. Every cell, I mean, every area of our body has some stem cells in it, but the best places to get 'em are obviously our fat and our bone marrow. And I prefer the bone marrow. And so those are the cells and they're gonna be like the seeds. If we have an area that needs to be repaired, like a knee, then we're gonna use those in that area and implant those into the area where we think that, that it needs to be to heal the bone, especially because that's really where most of the pain comes from with arthritis, but also the tendons, the ligaments, the soft tissues, the muscles. And those are this kind of like the seeds and those are gonna grow and spread and do all the work. And help the area heal. But then I also like to use fertilizer in the garden to help those plants grow stronger. So we use platelet-rich plasma, PRP,
